South Korea announced a 26 trillion won ($19 billion) support package for its chip industry to stay competitive in areas like chip design and manufacturing amid intense global competition. To increase investments by semiconductor companies, President Yoon Suk Yeol unveiled a 17 trillion won financial support programme via the government-run Korea Development Bank.
“Win or lose, that depends on who can make cutting-edge semiconductors first,” Yoon said, highlighting the crucial nature of the semiconductor industry. South Korea trails behind in chip design and contract manufacturing, even though it is home to major memory chip manufacturers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The nation makes up about 1% of the global fabless market, which is what companies like Nvidia are driving.
A 1 trillion won fund will help fabless companies and equipment producers address this. South Korea’s share of the global market for non-memory chips, such as mobile CPUs, is expected to rise from 2% to 10%, according to Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun. This package surpasses previous projections made by Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, which indicated support worth over 10 trillion won.
Choi noted the global trend of significant government subsidies for the chip industry and compared South Korea’s support for chips favourably with that of other nations.
