The government of President Lee Jae Myung has announced one of the largest industrial programs in the country's history: a combined public and private investment drive approaching US$1.2 trillion, concentrated on semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and the infrastructure that powers both. The stated ambition is explicit — to cement what the administration calls overwhelming industry leadership over the coming decade.
At the center of the plan is an AI data-center megaproject totaling 18.4GW of capacity by 2035, backed by more than ₩1,000 trillion (approximately US$648bn). The first phase — 8.4GW by 2029, at an estimated ₩550 trillion — will be delivered with SK Group (5GW), GS Group (2.4GW), and Naver (1GW). Capacity is deliberately distributed away from Seoul, with priority given to Chungcheong, Ulsan, Donghae, and Sejong, both to balance regional growth and to relieve grid congestion.
The program lands alongside reports that Samsung and SK will invest on the order of ₩1,300 trillion over ten years in semiconductor clusters, AI data centers, and robotics — making the private-sector commitment, not the public one, the larger engine of the strategy.