South Korea will launch a 5 trillion won (about $3.5 billion) semiconductor fund targeting promising chip materials, parts, equipment and fabless companies, the government said on 10 August, as Seoul doubles down on its bid to keep the country at the centre of the global chip map.
The fund is part of a broader push to speed the development of semiconductor hubs — industrial clusters where the full supply chain, from design to manufacturing, sits in one place. In a related move, President Lee Jae-myung is seeking to relocate a military airbase by mid-2028 to free up land for a large chip cluster, according to the announcement.
South Korea is already home to the world's two largest memory-chip makers, Samsung and SK Hynix, and the new fund is designed to deepen the ecosystem around them by propping up domestic suppliers of materials, components and equipment — the links in the chain that Korea has long imported from Japan and elsewhere. Fabless start-ups, historically the weakest part of the country's semiconductor industry, are also in the fund's sights.
The plan lands as governments worldwide pour money into semiconductors, with the US, EU, Japan and China all running large subsidy programmes. For Seoul, the bet is that controlling more of the value chain — not just memory production — is what will protect its position as competition for AI chips and advanced packaging intensifies.
