South Korea’s top four conglomerates – Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG – are sharply increasing domestic investment as Asia’s fourth-largest economy seeks to position itself as a global hub for artificial intelligence, robotics and next-generation semiconductors.
Hyundai Motor Group has pledged 125 trillion won ($86 billion) for local spending through 2030, Samsung Group 60 trillion won and SK Group an unprecedented 600 trillion won, marking one of the largest coordinated investment waves in Korea’s industrial history.
The moves are a reversal from years of their outward expansion and signal a renewed drive to secure supply chains, reinforce core technologies and strengthen the country’s long-term manufacturing competitiveness.
As part of the plan, Samsung Electronics Co. confirmed during a meeting between President Lee Jae Myung and major business leaders in Seoul on Sunday that it has resumed construction of its fifth chip plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.
SAMSUNG RESUMES P5 CONSTRUCTION WITH AT LEAST 60 TRILLION WON
Samsung’s revival of the so-called Pyeongtaek P5 project marks its largest domestic fab investment in years, following a two-year pause triggered by deep losses in its memory division and delays in high-performance chip development.
The plant, expected to cost at least 60 trillion won, will serve as Samsung’s flagship R&D and manufacturing base for its most advanced memory technologies, including 10-nanometer-class 1c DRAM and the latest high-bandwidth memory HBM4 chips powering the global AI-server boom.
The new fab, stretching 650 meters by 195 meters with room for three stories, is slated to begin mass production in 2028.
Samsung froze the project in early 2023 after falling behind in next-generation high-bandwidth memory. But surging global demand for AI infrastructure has shifted the calculus.
DRAMeXchange forecasts Samsung’s DRAM wafer input based on 12-inch ones to climb to 680,000 sheets per month by late 2026, the highest level since 2023.
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong said at Sunday’s meeting that the company will continue “expanding domestic investment, creating high-quality jobs for young people and strengthening cooperation with SMEs and startups,” adding that Korea will remain its central base for R&D and advanced manufacturing.
HYUNDAI MOTOR COMMITS 125 TRILLION WON THROUGH 2030
Hyundai Motor Group said it will invest 125.2 trillion won in Korea from 2026 to 2030, a 40.5% jump from its average annual spending over the past five years.
Of the total, more than 70%, or nearly 89 trillion won, will go toward AI, robotics, autonomous driving, software-defined vehicles and R&D.
Hyundai aims to anchor its future mobility strategy in Korea.
Chairman Chung Euisun said the core of the plan is “fostering Korea’s AI and robotics industries,” noting that Hyundai will build an AI data center and a robotics production and foundry complex designed to manufacture a wide range of robot models.
The automaker also plans to expand local production and exports.
Its finished-vehicle exports are expected to rise from 2.18 million units in 2024 to 2.47 million units in 2030. EV shipments will surge from 260,000 units to 1.76 million units over the same period.
To support this scale-up, Hyundai and Kia will build an additional dedicated EV plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, with an annual capacity of 150,000 units, while a 200,000-unit EV facility in Ulsan is set for completion early next year.
SK GROUP UNVEILS 600 TRILLION WON PLAN FOR YONGIN CLUSTER
SK Group announced the most ambitious investment of all, up to 600 trillion won for its Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, the largest single industrial project in Korea’s history.
Chairman Chey Tae-won said SK had initially planned 128 trillion won in domestic spending through 2028, but surging demand for AI memory and increasingly advanced process technologies are “pushing capital requirements sharply higher.”
The investment will prioritize AI infrastructure and ecosystem development. SK plans to partner with Nvidia Corp., Amazon Web Services Inc. and Siemens AG to build autonomous manufacturing systems in Korea.
It also plans a network of regional AI data-center hubs to support the country’s ambition for sovereign AI, or domestic AI infrastructure that can operate independently of foreign technology and cloud providers.
LG GROUP TO INVEST 60 TRILLION WON IN MATERIALS AND COMPONENTS
LG Group will invest 60 trillion won, or 60% of its planned 100 trillion won domestic spending over the next five years, in Korea’s materials, components and equipment supply chain.
Chairman Koo Kwang-mo said the goal is to fortify the industrial base behind Korea’s final products, ensuring that “external shocks do not disrupt Korea’s innovation ecosystem.”
OTHERS JOIN THE INVESTMENT WAVE
The country’s biosimilar giant Celltrion Inc. plans to invest 4 trillion won across three domestic manufacturing sites in Incheon Songdo, Chungbuk Ochang and Yesan over the next three years.
It will also raise its annual R&D budget from 600 billion won to 1 trillion won by 2027, a level comparable to major global pharmaceutical companies, Chairman Seo Jung-jin said.
The company recently acquired Eli Lilly and Company’s plant in Branchburg, NJ, for about 460 billion won, securing its first US manufacturing base as a hedge against possible hefty US tariffs on imported drugs.
