South Korea’s chip industry powers economic recovery as semiconductor equipment investment surges 75.9%

South Korea’s semiconductor sector is doing the heavy lifting for the entire economy right now, and the numbers are hard to argue with. The Korea Development Institute released its July Economic Trends report on July 8, showing that chip exports and related investment have become the dominant force behind the country’s improving economic outlook. The standout figure: investment in semiconductor manufacturing equipment jumped 75.9% in May. Total industrial production rose 2.3% year-on-year in May, continuing a positive trend from prior months. Facility investment overall grew 9.7%, but the semiconductor equipment category dwarfed that broader figure. On the trade side, exports expanded by 70.9% on a daily average basis in June, driven primarily by semiconductors and ICT products. KDI revised its 2026 GDP growth forecast upward to 2.5%, compared to the 1.9% projection it had issued back in February. The institute attributed more than 0.3 percentage points of that revision specifically to semiconductor sector performance. South Korea’s government went even further in mid-July, bumping its own GDP forecast to 3.0%. The reasoning was the same: a semiconductor supercycle fueled by global...