South Korea is making a massive financial bet to become an AI superpower. The government anticipates roughly 550 trillion won, about $380 billion, in private-sector investment targeting chips, AI data centers, batteries, and electric vehicles.
Two corporate giants are driving the effort. Samsung Group alone plans to invest over 1,000 trillion won, approximately $648 billion, by 2026 and beyond. A significant portion, over 350 trillion won, is allocated for AI infrastructure and advanced data centers.
Samsung Electronics is projected to reach an operating profit of 550 trillion won by 2027, fueled by soaring demand for AI servers.
SK Group, through its subsidiary SK Hynix, is planning investments of up to 1,100 trillion won for semiconductors and AI data centers. The scale includes plans for gigawatt-scale facilities.
Foreign investment is also joining the push. Amazon Web Services is committing an additional 7 trillion won, about $4.9 billion, for AI data centers in South Korea from 2025 to 2031.
This concentrated buildout matters globally. Samsung and SK Hynix dominate the market for high-bandwidth memory, a critical component for AI training and inference. A major challenge is power infrastructure, as gigawatt-scale data centers require enormous, reliable electricity supply. The industry also faces the risk of cyclicality, with a history of massive investments followed by corrections.