South Korea has announced an investment plan of one trillion dollars (yes, with a t) to build new chip factories, artificial intelligence data centers, and launch humanoid robots into the labor market before 2028. Behind this mega-investment are the South Korean government and tech giants such as SK Group, GS Group, and Naver, which want to secure global dominance in memory manufacturing and in the new AI economy.
Most of the money will go toward new semiconductor plants in the southwest of the country, where companies like SK Hynix plan to expand their production of memory chips — those essential components found inside everything from a mobile phone to a cloud server. But the plan does not stop there: it also includes $357 billion to build AI data centers spread across several provinces and the goal of having humanoid robots working in ten different industries by 2028. To give you an idea, the government wants to train 10,000 workers as “AI robotics specialists” over the next five years.
And why should we care? Because memory chips are the fuel of any digital device, and South Korea doubling its production capacity means the prices of these components could stabilize or even drop. As for humanoid robots, the debate is on the table: South Korean unions have already expressed their concern about the impact on employment. What happens in South Korea in the coming years will be a preview of what could happen in the rest of the world with automation and artificial intelligence applied to physical work.
— Marta, for intermittent intelligence.
