South Korean President Lee Jae-myung wants a military airbase out of the way so he can put a semiconductor megacluster in its place. The Gwangju Air Base, a joint facility involving US military operations, sits on roughly 8.3 million square meters of flat, infrastructure-ready terrain in the country’s southwestern Honam region. Lee’s government sees it as the perfect foundation for what could become one of the world’s largest chip manufacturing zones.
The timeline is aggressive. Infrastructure readiness is targeted for mid-2028, with initial semiconductor production expected by 2030. That cadence maps neatly onto Lee’s presidential term, which helps explain the urgency.
An $518 billion bet on memory chips
The numbers behind this project are staggering. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have announced plans for a combined investment exceeding 800 trillion won, roughly $518 billion. Each company intends to build two new memory fabrication plants in the southwest region.
A separate 180 trillion won is earmarked for advanced manufacturing and supporting infrastructure through 2030.
