Samsung wants to invest 300 trillion won in chip production over the next twenty years. These are part of the larger plan to turn the country into a semiconductor hub.
The massive investment mainly goes to constructing five chip factories on South Korean soil. These are coming now that the local government has the ambition to expand the chip industry thoroughly. In total, it wants 550 trillion won in investments from private companies, of which Samsung already fills a large part.
Samsung is already the largest manufacturer of memory chips, smartphones and TVs in the world today. But it’s not the only major chipmaker in the country. SK Hynix also has its home base there.
The Korean step towards more chip production is not unexpected. Europe has the ambition to get more chip production on its soil, and the US has also realized that it needs to invest in this after the recent chip crisis.
In Asia, the puzzle is even more complex. Today, Taiwan is the chip factory of the world, but that is a region that is sensitive to earthquakes on the one hand and a country that China does not regard as an independent country but as a rebellious province on the other. At the same time, the geopolitical tensions between China and the US mean that specific chip technology is not allowed from the US to China.
All factors affect Korea’s choice to produce more chips on its soil. It wants to promote things in the coming years with tax benefits and infrastructural support, among other things.
