South Korea plans multibillion-dollar investment in AI infrastructure, with ripple effects for crypto

South Korea just dropped one of the largest national technology bets in history. The country unveiled plans on June 29 to pour more than $1 trillion in combined public and private investment into AI infrastructure, anchored by a staggering commitment from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to build four new chip fabrication plants. The semiconductor commitment alone, roughly 800 trillion won (approximately $518 billion), aims to double South Korea’s national DRAM production by around 2031. That timeline was originally expected to take a decade longer. The mega projects and who’s writing the checks The initiative is structured around three mega projects designed to position South Korea as a dominant force in global AI technology. Samsung and SK Hynix are handling the semiconductor heavy lifting, but the broader ecosystem includes major contributions from SK Group, GS Group, and Naver, the company behind South Korea’s dominant search engine and cloud platform. Total anticipated investments across public and private sectors are expected to surpass $1 trillion. The focus isn’t just on making more chips. It’s about building the full stack: fabrication plants for advanced memory semiconduc...