S. Korean, global tech firms agree on $950 bn cooperation projects
San Francisco, July 25
South Korean conglomerates and global tech giants, including Nvidia, have agreed to pursue a series of cooperation projects that together are worth $950 billion, a senior presidential official said.
The projects include a long-term deal under which SK Group will supply $750 billion worth of high-performance semiconductors to global tech firms, including Nvidia, presidential chief of staff for policy Kim Yong-beom said at a press briefing, reports Yonhap news agency.
The agreement was reached during a high-level meeting in San Francisco that brought together the chiefs of global tech firms and the heads of South Korean conglomerates, including Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won.
OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang were also among those who attended the meeting.
During the meeting, South Korean firms and global tech companies also agreed to pursue joint investment in large-scale AI data centers with a combined capacity of 5 gigawatts and 2 million graphics processing units (GPUs), Kim said.
South Korea's internet portal Naver will also establish global AI factories worth $10 billion through a strategic investment agreement with Nvidia and an infrastructure supply deal with Brookfield Corp., a Canadian investment management firm.
Also at the meeting, President Lee Jae Myung declared a vision to make South Korea a trustworthy production base and supply partner for artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors, vowing to lead the country into a key global player in the AI supply chain.
"South Korea will make a leap forward to become an irreplaceable, core nation in the AI supply chain," Lee said under what his office called the "San Francisco AI Declaration."
"Based on the world's highest-level competitiveness and production capacity in memory semiconductors we have, (South Korea) will become a trustworthy AI chip production base and supply chain partner," the president said.
The declaration came as Seoul seeks to provide further momentum after growing global demand for semiconductors amid the AI boom has helped push South Korean into becoming one of the world's major chip supply hubs.
Last month, South Korea announced three mega projects involving major investments, totalling over 4,000 trillion won ($2.73 trillion), in a semiconductor production cluster, physical AI and AI data centres.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Impressive numbers but I'm skeptical. $750 billion in semiconductor deals with Nvidia? That's a huge commitment. Hope South Korea can deliver on these promises without overheating their economy. We've seen similar big announcements from other countries that never fully materialized. Let's see how this plays out over the next 5-10 years.
As an Indian IT professional, I can see the strategic shift here. South Korea is leveraging its memory chip dominance (HBM, DDR5) to lock in long-term deals. Meanwhile, India is still importing most of our chips. We need to fast-track our own semiconductor mission – the $10 billion incentive package is a good start, but we need more aggressive targets and global partnerships like this! 🚀
Interesting how South Korea is becoming the "trusted partner" for AI chips while the US-China tech war intensifies. For us in North America, this diversification of supply away from Taiwan is crucial. But $950 billion seems almost unrealistic – that's more than the GDP of many countries. Hope the projections aren't inflated for political optics.
This is huge for the global AI ecosystem! 5GW AI data centers with 2 million GPUs – that's mind-boggling scale. But I worry about energy consumption and environmental impact. South Korea and global tech firms need to ensure these data centers use renewable energy. Also, India should collaborate with South Korea on AI chip design – we have great engineers! 🤝
As a tech investor, I see this as a watershed moment. Nvidia locking in $750
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