Samsung Group is preparing to unveil a sweeping decade-long investment plan on Monday, committing 1,000 trillion won, or about US$648 billion, in what would become one of South Korea’s largest coordinated industrial pushes, according to a media report.
The plan is expected to include major spending across semiconductors, artificial intelligence data centres, batteries and display technologies. A report by the Maeil Business Newspaper said up to 300 trillion won could be directed towards building chip production facilities in the country’s southwest, although no sources were cited.
Top executives from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are expected to attend a meeting at the presidential office with President Lee Jae Myung, where the investment strategy will be laid out. The report added that the initiative is designed to steer new development beyond Seoul and its surrounding tech hubs, although it did not specify when the spending would take place.
At its core, the plan reflects a broader government push to decentralise South Korea’s artificial intelligence and semiconductor growth. By spreading infrastructure more evenly across regions, policymakers aim to ease bottlenecks in power and water supply while also creating new industrial clusters and jobs outside the capital region.
Political pressure has been building for years over the heavy concentration of chip manufacturing around Seoul, and the issue has become more prominent under President Lee’s regional development agenda. Lee has recently held separate meetings with Samsung and SK executives as discussions accelerate over the next phase of semiconductor expansion.
A presidential adviser said this week that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix may need to bring forward some investment timelines originally planned for the 2040s into the mid-2030s, citing faster-than-expected AI-driven demand for memory chips and growing infrastructure constraints in the capital area.
The presidential office has said it will announce three major projects on Monday aimed at driving national economic growth, although details have not been confirmed. Samsung and SK Hynix declined to comment.
Reuters
