South Korea bets $1T on memory fabs, AI data centers, and humanoid robots

South Korea’s government and its largest tech firms are pledging $1 trillion toward a set of megaprojects aimed at securing the country’s lead in AI infrastructure by 2028. The plan spans three fronts that President Lee Jae Myung framed as a single ‘triple axis’: expanded memory chip production, new AI data centers, and commercial deployment of humanoid robots. The largest piece is a $585 billion commitment from Samsung and SK Hynix to build new fabrication plants in the southwest provinces and expand fab construction around Seoul, with a stated goal of doubling national DRAM output within five years.

The timing reflects how central Korean chipmakers have become to the AI boom. Surging demand for memory has driven record profits and stock valuations at Samsung and SK Hynix, but the same demand has strained supply, contributing to memory shortages and rising prices for consumer electronics. Separately, Hyundai is pushing to mass-produce humanoid robots from its Boston Dynamics subsidiary, intended to take over physically demanding tasks in auto factories and other workplaces.

The initiative is not without domestic friction. Policymakers are debating how to handle the chipmakers’ outsized AI-era profits, with some proposing mechanisms to redistribute the windfall, while labor unions are resisting the prospect of humanoid robots displacing human workers. The bet underscores Korea’s strategy of trying to own the physical layer of AI — chips, compute, and embodied machines — rather than competing primarily on software.