Samsung outlines a $90 billion strategy for the Chungcheong area in South Korea.

      Samsung Group has announced a significant investment plan for domestic production over the next ten years, totaling 140 trillion won, approximately $90 billion. This investment will focus on displays, memory chips, batteries, and chip-packaging materials in South Korea’s central Chungcheong provinces.

      During an event in Asan on Thursday, hosted by President Lee Jae Myung, Samsung Display CEO Yi Chung provided details of this investment as part of the government’s larger initiative, described as a tripolar mega project aimed at fostering AI-era industry.

      The largest allocation of these funds, 67 trillion won, will go to Samsung Display for expanding OLED production in Asan, which will supply panels for smartphones, tablets, extended-reality headsets, vehicles, and humanoid robots. Following this, Samsung Electronics has earmarked 56 trillion won for the Onyang and Cheonan sites, converting them into production hubs for high-bandwidth memory, a critical chip type for Nvidia’s AI accelerators and significant for Samsung’s recent AI-led profitability.

      Samsung SDI has allocated 9 trillion won for a mother-line testbed in Cheonan intended to validate next-generation battery technologies, including dry-electrode processes, prior to their implementation in global facilities. Additionally, Samsung Electro-Mechanics has committed 8 trillion won for Sejong, aimed at boosting production of FC-BGA package substrates for AI server chips, catering to the growing demand from major North American tech companies while also focusing on local hiring and R&D.

      The combined efforts of these four Samsung divisions suggest that they aim to replicate the success of Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong in chip fabrication by centralizing the supply chain in Chungcheong, enabling efficient sourcing of memory, substrates, batteries, and displays for AI server construction from a single region in Korea.

      Chairman Jay Y. Lee of Samsung Electronics, who was present at the briefing alongside President Lee, emphasized the critical nature of this investment, asserting that the success of the AI era hinges on the materials and components that drive it, which is directly tied to Samsung's future. He pledged that Samsung would make a strong commitment to help South Korea evolve into an industrial powerhouse.

      During the same event, President Lee positioned Chungcheong as a prospective hub for semiconductors, displays, batteries, and biotechnology, dubbing it a “Korean Silicon Valley.” Samsung’s investment complements a similar commitment from SK hynix for a chip plant in Cheongju, and from Celltrion, with the companies collectively announcing a total investment of 392 trillion won, or about $252.5 billion, for the province, as reported by the Korea Times.

      Not everyone is in favor of this characterization. Critics have accused the Lee administration of pressuring conglomerates into making these commitments to strengthen political backing ahead of the ruling Democratic Party's national convention in August, a claim the president dismissed as “impossible,” asserting that Korean firms compete on a global scale and lack the capacity for symbolic gestures.

      The Chungcheong announcement follows Samsung’s earlier reveal of a comprehensive, decade-long investment strategy that involves hundreds of trillions of won, of which the current regional investment is a component. It also occurs shortly after Samsung's chip workforce achieved a bonus structure linked to semiconductor profits after a standoff with their union, which had threatened a strike, highlighting how the rising demand for AI has also affected labor relations within the company.

      Samsung has not yet released a construction timeline for the Chungcheong sites, nor has the government clarified what regulatory support, if any, will accompany this private investment. For a company whose chairman has deemed this a pivotal moment for the nation’s industrial future, the lack of a published timeline stands out as a notable omission in an otherwise meticulously planned announcement.