ED Korea's ambitious AI vision
President Lee Jae Myung makes his "San Francisco AI Declaration" speech in front of U.S. Big Tech leaders and Korea's top CEOs in San Francisco, Friday (local time). Yonhap
Amid headlong move ahead, detailed blueprint must follow
Speaking to his aides by video from Brazil during his South America trip, President Lee Jae Myung reiterated the significance of his "San Francisco AI Declaration" calling it Korea's bid to become an irreplaceable leader in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).
In the last weekend of July, the president proclaimed in San Francisco that "Korea will serve as a trusted manufacturing base for AI semiconductors and as a reliable supply chain partner." He was accompanied by Korea's top CEOs, including Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun and Naver founder and Chairman Lee Hae-jin. Leaders of top U.S. tech companies including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan were also present. The gathering of tech and semiconductor titans also involved burgers and beer, as the leaders moved for a "chip alliance."
During the summit, the Korean firms signed agreements for some $950 billion worth of cooperation projects. Samsung Electronics signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Broadcom, while SK hynix and Naver have agreed to partnerships with Nvidia amid others. There are calls for these MOUs and initiatives to be clarified with specific figures to give further momentum to the president's "AI Declaration." Nevertheless, what emerged from the two days in San Francisco was unprecedented in both its optics and content, reflecting a firm political will on the administration's part to seize the semiconductor boom to retain supply chain leadership. The question now is: Can Korea go beyond?
The Lee administration is intent on building on its current leadership in memory chip production to elevate Korea to one of the world's top three AI powerhouses, along with the United States and China.
With the high-bandwidth memory chips produced by SK hynix and Samsung Electronics currently making up 80 percent of global market, such an initiative on the part of Seoul is a logical next step, as the global hegemony is expanding to entail technological leadership.
However, the president's speech in San Francisco promised that Korea will become an "irreplaceable pillar of the global AI supply chain," building on the country's "world-class competitiveness in memory chips and related production capacity." While these two elements are the twin pillars of Korea's chip-led economy, more work remains to be done.
For one, the semiconductor sector is not only determined by cycles but by rivals rapidly catching up. Chinese chipmaker CXMT, ranked fourth globally in memory chips, made a successful initial public offering on Monday, gaining the cash needed to catch up with Korean semiconductors. Chinese tech companies, seemingly unrestrained by caps on weekly working hours, are reportedly boosting production. Geopolitical pressures on the Korean semiconductor sector can also be a factor, as was the case when U.S. pressure held back Japanese semiconductors in the 1980s, as Chey pointed out.
Korea also needs to work further on deregulation — including allowing exemptions to the 52-hour workweek for researchers in cutting-edge tech sectors, for example. The government should also accelerate the construction of electricity, water and transmission systems required for the three megaprojects the administration announced recently, involving more than $576 billion worth of investments for building semiconductor clusters, AI data centers and physical AI systems by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix.
A recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies also stressed the need for Korea to shift from its current status as an export nation to becoming an ecosystem power. It describes an ecosystem power as "a country whose firms occupy the architectural control points, including the interfaces, standards, certification systems and platforms around which the world’s most consequential technologies and industries are organized." How Korea manages these vital tasks to retain its current hold on the supply side may well determine its future steps.