Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan announces semiconductor investment projects during an investment briefing meeting chaired by President Lee Jae Myung at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Monday. Pool photo by Yonhap
South Korea plans to develop a new semiconductor production base in the country's southwestern region through 800 trillion won (US$517.9 billion) in corporate investments that will create four memory chip fabrication plants, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said Monday.
Kim unveiled the investment plan to transform the Gwangju and Jeolla regions into the nation's second major semiconductor cluster, alongside the existing hub in the Seoul metropolitan area, during a national investment briefing chaired by President Lee Jae Myung at Cheong Wa Dae.
"Relying on a single production base in the Seoul metropolitan area is no longer sufficient to meet surging semiconductor demand," Kim said, noting that constraints on power and water resources limit further expansion under existing plans.
The semiconductor investment is part of the government's "three mega projects" initiative, which calls for large-scale investments by chip giants Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc., as well as other companies, in semiconductors, physical artificial intelligence (AI) and AI data centers.
