South Korea has announced a sweeping semiconductor investment plan, with Samsung Electronics and SK hynix committing a combined 800 trillion won (US$519 billion) to develop a new semiconductor manufacturing hub in the country’s southwest as part of a broader national AI strategy.
The initiative, unveiled by President Lee Jae Myung alongside industry leaders, aims to strengthen Korea’s leadership in semiconductors, AI infrastructure and advanced manufacturing through large-scale public-private investment.
For the advanced packaging sector, Samsung confirmed it will expand investment in Cheonan and Onyang, where it plans to increase production of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) devices requiring advanced packaging technologies.
The central region will also be developed as Korea’s dedicated semiconductor packaging hub.
Alongside the new production cluster, the government will support the accelerated build-out of existing semiconductor sites, invest more than 30 trillion won in next-generation chip technologies over the next 15 years, and strengthen collaboration between industry, academia and government.
The announcement reflects growing global investment in advanced packaging as AI processors increasingly rely on HBM, chiplet integration and heterogeneous packaging to deliver higher performance and bandwidth.
