Samsung Electro-Mechanics Fast-Tracks AI MLCC Plant to Boost Nvidia Supply

*Editor's Note: 'AI PRISM' (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an "AI-based personalized news recommendation and summary service" developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six customized news items by reader type.

1. 15 Months After Securing Site... Samsung Electro-Mechanics Fast-Tracks New Philippines MLCC Plant

- Key Summary: Samsung Electro-Mechanics has decided to bring its third multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) plant, under construction in Calamba, Laguna province, in the Philippines, into operation from the end of the first quarter next year. The early start was confirmed 15 months after it began coordinating investment terms with the local government late last year. The new plant will serve as a dedicated production facility for high-capacity 'AI MLCC' to be mounted on Nvidia's next-generation accelerators 'Vera Rubin' and 'Feynman,' and Samsung Electro-Mechanics has secured advance orders by signing long-term agreements (LTA) with around 10 clients, including top-tier hyperscalers. Accordingly, the industry expects Samsung Electro-Mechanics' capital expenditure (CAPEX) to expand from 3 trillion won this year to 6 trillion won next year.

2. Fears of Massive U.S. Treasury Sell-Off... A 'Yen Defense' United Front for the First Time in 28 Years

- Key Summary: The United States and Japan jointly bought yen for the first time in 28 years to halt yen weakness. After the yen-dollar exchange rate soared to the 163.9-yen level on the 29th of last month, its lowest level since 1986, the Japanese government and the Bank of Japan intervened in the market, and the U.S. Treasury was also reported to have conducted a rate check through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Japanese media estimated the scale of intervention on the 30th of last month alone reached 6 trillion to 7 trillion yen, and there were signs that the United States considered buying yen worth up to 10 billion dollars. Meanwhile, in the market, wariness is also growing that rapid yen appreciation could trigger the unwinding of yen carry trades.

3. Professor Lee Woo-geun: "A 40-Year Long-Term Plan Was the Foundation of China's Tech Rise... Korea Needs Its Own 'Xinchuang'"

- Key Summary: Lee Woo-geun, a professor in the Department of Semiconductor Convergence Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, explained in an interview with Seoul Economic Daily that China's long-term science and technology policies spanning decades, represented by the '863 and 973 Projects,' became the soil for today's Chinese technological rise. The 863 Program introduced in 1986 and the 973 Program launched in 1997 were integrated into the National Key Research and Development Program in 2016 and continue to this day, in contrast to Korea, where strategies change with every change of government, he pointed out. Professor Lee introduced the 'Xinchuang' policy, under which the government purchases a certain quantity from companies that localize semiconductors, supporting both early revenue generation and product verification at the same time. He also stressed that in the fabless and system semiconductor fields, creating an ecosystem where various companies can make attempts is important.

4. Securing 11.67 Million Tons of Process Data From Steel, Oil Refining and Cement... "AI Runs Factories Autonomously"

- Key Summary: Ineeji, which is participating in the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's M.AX (Manufacturing AI Transformation) Alliance, has secured a total of 11.67 million tons of process data in continuous process industries such as cement, oil refining and steel. Its AI autonomous operation solution 'Infinite Optimal Series,' which learned from this data, works in a way where an agent that has learned the know-how of skilled workers directly performs everything from process anomaly detection to control value recommendation. Choi Jae-sik, CEO of Ineeji, explained that this technology is at a stage equivalent to Level 3 of automotive autonomous driving, and it has signed contracts with Japanese steel and cement companies to maintain cooperative relationships. The government plans to expand AI factory leading projects through the M.AX Alliance to 200 by 2027 and 500 by 2030.

5. China's Chip Output Surges 350% in a Decade... Red Fabs Already Dominate General-Purpose Semiconductors

- Key Summary: China's integrated circuit (IC) output last year was 484.28 billion units, a surge of nearly 350% from 2015, a decade earlier. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), China's share of mature-process semiconductor production facilities expanded from 19% in 2015 to 33% in 2023, and during this period China accounted for 72% of the increase in global semiconductor production capacity. CXMT, China's top memory company, is additionally building a wafer plant in the Lingang New Area and is projected to double its current production capacity by 2030 to surpass the United States' Micron. An official in the domestic semiconductor industry said the old success formula, in which general-purpose chip profits led to investment in cutting-edge products, has become increasingly difficult to apply.

6. DeepSeek Breaks Weight Classes... Outperforms AI Model 8 Times Larger

- Key Summary: The official version of the lightweight model 'DeepSeek V4 Flash,' unveiled by China's DeepSeek on the 31st of last month, surpassed the performance of the company's flagship model 'Pro Preview,' which has about eight times more parameters, through post-training alone. It scored 82.7 on 'Terminal Bench 2.1,' which evaluates coding ability, far exceeding Pro Preview's 72.4, and also led Pro Preview by 6 points with a score of 50 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Its price is 0.28 dollars per million output tokens, a markedly low level compared to 25 dollars for Claude Opus 4.8 and 1.2 dollars for OpenAI's Luna. Along with this, Chinese high-performance, low-cost models such as Moonshot AI's 'Kimi K3' and Zhipu AI's 'GLM-5.2' have appeared one after another, with some assessing that the technology gap with the United States is narrowing.