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| President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a semiconductor industry strategy meeting at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap |
By Jung Min-ho
President Yoon Suk Yeol has called for all-out efforts to stay competitive in the chip industry, which he called a pillar of the Korean economy and a source of quality jobs.
During Thursday's meeting on a national strategy for the semiconductor sector at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Yoon said public-private cooperation is essential in winning the chip war as Cold War-like geopolitics emerge as the biggest business risk to the nation's chipmakers.
"Semiconductor exports account for 20 percent of Korea's total exports and 55 percent of its manufacturing facility investment; it represents Korean industries," he said. "To win the chip war, we need both innovations by private companies and leading strategies by the state."
Speaking to his top officials, scholars and business leaders, including SK hynix co-CEO Kwak Noh-jung and Kyung Kye-hyun, who leads Samsung Electronics' chip business, Yoon said the importance of advanced chips will continue to grow with the rise of future technologies that cannot function without them.
"The performance of smartphones, vehicles, electric devices, satellites and weapons entirely depends on the performance of the chips installed inside them. Chips also make it possible to realize up-to-date technologies such as artificial intelligence or quantum computing," Yoon said.
With some of the new technologies being fused with one another in sectors such as defense, chips have become "the core of security," not just economy, he added.
His comments come at a time when the Washington-Beijing rivalry is intensifying in the field. Just last month, China's government banned memory chips made by Micron, an American chipmaker, from critical infrastructure projects, in a clear retaliation against U.S. restrictions on Chinese tech companies over similar concerns.
The Chinese measures created an opportunity for the two Korean chip giants, Samsung and SK, to fill the void left by Micron. Yet they remain cautious, with several U.S. politicians, such as Rep. Mike Gallagher, openly warning of grave consequences.
The prospect of a geopolitical windfall for the Korean companies has been complicated by their country's deep ties to both countries ― too deep that giving up either of the two would be almost unthinkable.
At the meeting, Yoon said he would resolve the issues arising from the geopolitical situation by "strengthening relations with the United States and other friendly countries." However, given that significant portions of the Korean companies' revenues still come from China, geopolitics is poised to remain as a long-term risk factor, which would require well-constructed strategies and serious diplomatic efforts.
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