$950 bil. chip partnerships reinforce Korea's place in global AI supply chain

Korea's major semiconductor makers and other top tech companies have agreed on partnerships worth a total $950 billion with global Big Tech firms during President Lee Jae Myung's visit to San Francisco, highlighting Korea's expanding role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain.

The long-term agreements, announced alongside Lee's “San Francisco Declaration on AI” speech on Friday (local time), brought together leaders of Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group and Naver, together with representatives of Nvidia, OpenAI, Broadcom and Anthropic.

The partnerships were made as Seoul seeks to establish itself as an indispensable partner in AI semiconductor production and infrastructure amid an AI-driven semiconductor boom.

“Korea aims to become an irreplaceable pillar of the global AI supply chain,” the president said, presenting the country's vision for the future of AI and proposing a cooperative global framework.

“Building on our world-class competitiveness in memory chips and related production capacity, Korea will serve as a trusted manufacturing base ...