Korean firms including Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), SK, and Naver (035420.KS) are pursuing a total of $950 billion (about 1,300 trillion won) in semiconductor supply and production cooperation with global tech giants such as Nvidia, Broadcom, and Microsoft (MS). Korea will strengthen its position in the global AI supply chain by building an artificial intelligence data center (AIDC) of up to 5 gigawatts (GW) domestically and by receiving priority supply of the next-generation graphics processing unit (GPU) "Vera Rubin," among other measures.
The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) said on the 25th that it held the "San Francisco AI Summit," attended by major domestic and international companies, in San Francisco, United States, on the 24th.
The event was attended by Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee, SK Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Euisun Chung, and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin, as well as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella participated via video.
President Lee Jae-myung, through the "San Francisco AI Declaration" that day, unveiled his vision to cultivate Korea as a core hub in the global AI supply chain based on the world's top-tier memory semiconductor capabilities. On the occasion of the summit, a total of six agreements were signed between Korean companies and overseas tech giants. Samsung Electronics will pursue cooperation with Broadcom on advanced memory chip supply and AI chip foundry worth a total of $200 billion over five years from 2026 to 2030. Samsung SDS will build a partnership with Anthropic to jointly discover new AI markets and train applied AI engineers.
SK hynix (000660.KS) and SK Telecom will conduct cooperation worth a total of $500 billion with Nvidia, including memory chip purchases and the construction and expansion of an AIDC of up to 2GW. Nvidia will give SK priority allocation of the next-generation GPU Vera Rubin system, and SK hynix will supply advanced memory chips.
SK Telecom agreed to jointly invest with Anthropic in a domestic GW-scale AIDC project. SK hynix is also pursuing a plan to supply memory chips to Microsoft's AIDC over the long term. It plans to expand cooperation with Amazon Web Services (AWS), with which it jointly built the Ulsan AIDC last year, to expand a domestic GW-scale AIDC. Naver secured a total of $10 billion in investment and infrastructure support from Nvidia and global investment firm Brookfield. Nvidia will invest $1 billion and expand GPU supply and technological cooperation. Brookfield will provide up to $9 billion to arrange the infrastructure and supply chain needed to build Naver's GW-scale "AI Factory."
Hyundai Motor Group presented a physical AI vision that combines automotive manufacturing capabilities with robotics and data to realize integrated intelligence at the city level. It will jointly build a "robot reference platform" with Nvidia to support robot development by universities and startups, and will cooperate with Waymo on creating an autonomous driving ecosystem. It also plans to cultivate a domestic physical AI hub through investments such as the Saemangeum AI Valley.
Bae Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, said, "In that global tech giants and our companies discussed practical and concrete cooperation, we confirmed the status of Korea's AI as a core axis of the global AI supply chain." He added, "We will concentrate our policy capabilities so that Korea can leap forward as an irreplaceable global AI production base and AI cooperation platform."
