South Korea has laid out one of the largest industrial strategies in its history, unveiling a sweeping plan to pour more than $1 trillion into semiconductors, artificial intelligence and data centres over the coming years. The announcement, led by President Lee Jae Myung and reported by Al Jazeera, Reuters, CNN and CNBC on June 29, 2026, centres on a "triple axis" of chips, physical AI and data infrastructure.
Flankiert von den Führungskräften der beiden weltweit größten Hersteller von Speicherchips bezeichnete Lee die Initiative als einen Wettlauf, den das Land nicht verlieren dürfe. "We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country," he said in a televised address, casting the package as a "great leap forward." Weitere Informationen zu dieser Geschichte finden Sie in unserer aktuelle KI-Trends.
Drei Megaprojekte, verankert von den Speichergiganten
Reuters reported that the strategy is built around three chip and AI "mega-projects," and the headline commitment comes from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Gemeinsam werden sie zusammen mit ihren Zulieferern 800 Billionen Won (ca. 518 Milliarden US-Dollar) in den Bau neuer Chipfabriken investieren. Industrieminister Kim Jung-kwan sagte, die beiden Unternehmen würden jeweils zwei neue Produktionsstandorte im Südwesten Südkoreas errichten.
The southwestern region, centred on the city of Gwangju and South Jeolla province, will itself contribute between 5 trillion and 20 trillion won ($3.2 billion to $13 billion) to the projects. A further 81 trillion won ($52.5 billion) is earmarked for a chip-packaging cluster in the Chungcheong area near Seoul, according to the Al Jazeera report.
Die Verpackung ist zu einem stillen Schlachtfeld im Wettlauf um KI-Chips geworden. The most advanced AI accelerators rely on tightly stacked memory and sophisticated packaging to shuttle data at extreme speeds, and South Korea's push signals an intent to own that layer of the stack as well as the memory itself.
Ein gewaltiger Vorstoß für das Rechenzentrum
Über die Fabriken hinaus stellte die Regierung Pläne für ein Netzwerk von KI-Rechenzentren vor, die von einigen der größten Konzerne des Landes unterstützt werden. SK Group, GS Group und Naver werden rund 550 Billionen Won (356 Milliarden US-Dollar) in den Bau von Rechenzentren in der Region stecken.
Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon announced an even more ambitious long-term target: by 2035, an additional 10-gigawatt AI data centre is slated for construction, bringing the total planned capacity to more than 18.4 gigawatts at an investment exceeding 1,000 trillion won ($648 billion).
Taken together, the commitments push the overall envelope of the strategy well past the $1 trillion mark, putting South Korea among the biggest national spenders on AI infrastructure anywhere in the world.
Warum die Dringlichkeit akut ist
Das Ausmaß spiegelt die wachsende Angst in Seoul wider, in einem globalen KI-Wettrüsten unter Druck zu geraten. South Korea's memory giants are the backbone of the world's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supply, the specialised chips that sit alongside AI accelerators in data centres. Reuters recently reported that SK Hynix had joined the $1 trillion market-capitalisation club, joining Samsung and US-based Micron, as AI demand supercharges the memory sector.
High-bandwidth memory has become the connective tissue of the AI industry: without it, the graphics-processing units that train and run large models cannot move data fast enough to stay productive. Controlling that supply chain has therefore become a strategic priority, and South Korea's latest pledge is designed to lock in that advantage before rivals can erode it.
Der Boom dringt auf die Gesamtwirtschaft durch. Reports have surfaced that Apple has raised prices on MacBooks and iPads as AI-driven memory-chip costs surge, underlining how the scramble for AI silicon is rippling across consumer electronics worldwide.
Eine umkämpfte globale Landschaft
Aber Führung ist nicht garantiert. TSMC-dominated Taiwan, the United States under its CHIPS Act framework, and an increasingly self-sufficient China are all moving aggressively on advanced manufacturing. CNN noted that the South Korean plan is explicitly designed to "cement global leadership" in AI chip production, a goal that will require not just capital but flawless execution against formidable rivals.
Es gibt auch einen kritischen Engpass, den Geld allein nicht lösen kann: Energie. AI data centres are among the most power-hungry facilities ever built, and securing tens of gigawatts of reliable, ideally clean, electricity is one of the hardest problems in the industry. Südkoreas Pläne werden zum Teil davon leben oder sterben, ob seine Netz- und Energiepolitik mit seinen Siliziumambitionen Schritt halten kann.
Auch eine politische Dimension
Die Ankündigung hat auch einen innenpolitischen Zweck. President Lee pledged that the package would help narrow regional disparities by reviving economies beyond the greater Seoul metropolitan area, channelling investment into the traditionally less-developed southwest.
Ob der Optimismus völlig berechtigt ist, ist eine offene Frage. Reuters reported that the sheer scale of the Samsung and SK Hynix commitments is itself a test of whether the AI investment cycle will deliver returns, and some analysts have cautioned that overbuilding could strain balance sheets if AI demand eventually cools.
For now, though, the message from Seoul is unequivocal: when it comes to the silicon underpinning the AI boom, South Korea intends to be at the front of the pack, and it is willing to bet more than a trillion dollars on it.
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