Top presidential aide floats 'AI national dividends'

Kim Yong-beom, presidential chief of staff for policy, speaks during a press briefing at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, April 27, after meeting with Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, alongside President Lee Jae Myung. Yonhap

The top presidential aide for economic policy has proposed the country should come up with a national dividend policy that returns the excess tax revenue generated by Korea's booming artificial intelligence (AI)-related industries to the public.

“The fruits of the AI infrastructure era are not the outcome of individual companies alone, but are built on the industrial foundation that the entire nation has accumulated over the past half-century,” Kim Yong-beom, presidential chief of staff for policy, wrote on Facebook Monday.

His remarks come as public debate grows over how and whether companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix should share their massive operating profits generated by soaring global demand for AI-related products, including high-performance memory chips.

While Samsung's labor unions are threatening to strike over their demands for performance-based bonuses, similar to what SK hynix promised to its workers, there have been calls for systems similar to Kim's idea on an online anonymous forum that outsized gains of such big companies should be shared with the public because those firms benefit from state support.

Citing Norway's sovereign wealth fund, which was created in the 1990s to channel oil revenues back into society, Kim argued that the principle of broad social return should apply equally to Korea's AI windfall.

"Part of those fruits should be structurally returned to all citizens. That is the legitimacy and principle of the new policy design," Kim wrote.

In contrast to the online forum's calls for company profits to be shared directly, Kim's suggestion involves surplus taxes collected from tech companies experiencing high earnings.

Kim suggested several possible uses of the funds, such as for supporting youth startups, increasing rural basic incomes, supporting artists, strengthening pensions for the elderly and AI-era transition education.

Kim's comments reflect a broader examination of Korea's shifting industrial structure. He noted that the country is transitioning from a traditional cyclical export economy toward what he called a "technology monopoly economy," driven by its status as one of a handful of countries capable of producing high-demand products across the full stack of memory semiconductors, batteries and displays.

“This is not merely a matter of industrial competitiveness. In an era when supply chain sovereignty has become a key factor in national strategy, such manufacturing capabilities amount to geopolitical leverage. As AI infrastructure expands worldwide, the strategic importance of Korea’s industrial ecosystem will grow accordingly,” he wrote.

The proposed policy aligns with the Lee Jae Myung administration's "basic society" vision, which aims to guarantee a minimum standard of living for all citizens. Kim said the distribution of AI-era surplus is not simply a matter of redistribution but of managing structural inequality, warning that AI profits risk deepening polarization in Korean society.

The presidential aide urged the public to take action, saying it is a matter of choice whether the country retains its traditional economy or pursues transformation.

"The model that we think through, debate and create first could eventually become a standard for nations in the AI age," Kim wrote.

However, Cheong Wa Dae moved to distance itself from the proposal Tuesday afternoon, saying Kim's remarks represented his personal views rather than official policy direction.

"The content posted by the chief of staff for policy on social media is a personal opinion unrelated to internal discussions or reviews at the presidential office," a Cheong Wa Dae official said.

The Korean stock market slid as much as 5.1 percent Tuesday after Kim's remarks were widely reported, before recovering some ground following clarification from the presidential office. Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix both declined before starting to rebound, with Samsung ending at 279,000 won, down 2.28 percent, and SK hynix finishing at 1,835,000 won, down 2.39 percent.

Kim is a veteran bureaucrat who previously served as a vice finance minister. He was appointed to his current position at the beginning of Lee Jae Myung's administration in June 2025.