The major corporations in South Korea, including Samsung Electronics Co., will join a government initiative to invest $422 billion by 2026 in industries including chips and electric vehicles, marking the nation’s most aggressive move yet to stake out key technologies.
That would act as a catalyst for Samsung, which currently intends to invest around 300 trillion won ($229 billion) over the following two decades in the construction of a new chip cluster on the outskirts of Seoul. The biggest memory manufacturer in the world is making significant investments in its foundry skills in an effort to unseat its much larger rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. as the hub of global chip manufacturing.
On Wednesday, the South Korean government declared that it would concentrate its assistance on biotechnology, robots, electric vehicles, displays, processors, and batteries. The vision calls for the construction of hubs that would house massive semiconductor manufacturing facilities along with design firms and material suppliers to strengthen the domestic supply chain.
The main driver of the campaign would be Samsung’s investment. By 2042, the business intends to construct five memory and foundry fabs in a new chip cluster in Yongin, where it hopes to draw more than 150 domestic and international chip companies.
When pandemic shortages exposed the dangers of relying on a global supply chain for essential technology, policymakers from Washington to Beijing began investing billions of dollars in the race to strengthen domestic industrial supply networks. Although the US has been at the forefront of attempts to increase chip production capacity in the country, chipmakers are now weighing the conditions associated with government help.
At its home facility in Pyeongtaek, Samsung has been rapidly expanding. It also has plans to construct a new foundry in Taylor, Texas, by 2024 and has been considering a number of locations for potential facilities in the future, including Texas and Europe.
