President Lee Jae Myung announces a plan to mobilize roughly 2,000 trillion won ($1.3T) in public and private investment to build semiconductor fabs, AI data centers and related infrastructure led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.The programme concentrates new chip clusters and AI centres in the southwestern provinces, including Gwangju and South Jeolla, to spread economic activity beyond Seoul and to secure supply-chain leadership against Taiwan, China and Japan while tapping demand from Google, Amazon and Meta.Markets fell ahead of the government briefing—
Samsung Electronics shares dropped 4.7% and
SK Hynix shares fell 3.1%—and critics say the southwest lacks sufficient infrastructure and skilled labour, raising questions about cost, feasibility and political motives.