# South Korea announces $880 billion 10-year investment plan for semiconductors, AI data centers, and robotics

> South Korea's government has laid out a roughly $880 billion investment plan, about 1.35 quadrillion won, to be spent over ten years across three pillars: semiconductors, AI data centers, and physical AI and robotics. The sum is enormous, equal to around 5% of the country's 2024 GDP. The centerpiece is chips. Samsung and SK Hynix are each slated to build two new fabrication plants in the country's southwest provinces, a combined commitment of about $518 billion, while SK Group has pledged additional trillions of won on top of an existing data-center plan. On the energy side, the government is targeting 8.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity by 2029 and another 10 gigawatts by 2035. The framing matters as much as the money. By naming robotics and physical AI as a distinct pillar alongside chips and data centers, Seoul is betting that the next phase of AI moves off the screen and into machines. It is an explicit attempt to turn a country already central to global memory production into a full-stack AI infrastructure power.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: The Information · Published Thursday, July 23, 2026_

## Wortins' read

South Korea's government has laid out a roughly $880 billion investment plan, about 1.35 quadrillion won, to be spent over ten years across three pillars: semiconductors, AI data centers, and physical AI and robotics. The sum is enormous, equal to around 5% of the country's 2024 GDP. The centerpiece is chips. Samsung and SK Hynix are each slated to build two new fabrication plants in the country's southwest provinces, a combined commitment of about $518 billion, while SK Group has pledged additional trillions of won on top of an existing data-center plan. On the energy side, the government is targeting 8.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity by 2029 and another 10 gigawatts by 2035. The framing matters as much as the money. By naming robotics and physical AI as a distinct pillar alongside chips and data centers, Seoul is betting that the next phase of AI moves off the screen and into machines. It is an explicit attempt to turn a country already central to global memory production into a full-stack AI infrastructure power.

## Source

[Read the full story at The Information](https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/south-korea-invest-880-billion-chips-robotics-ai-years)

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