South Korea to spend $1T on more memory chip production and humanoid robots

However, the new fabs in South Korea’s southwestern region may need more time to get up and running, with SK Hynix Chairman Chey Tae-won commenting that it took nine years for the company to build a cluster of chip manufacturing facilities in Yongjin within the Seoul metropolitan area. So it’s unclear how soon global consumers can expect relief from sky-high memory chip prices and elevated prices for Apple’s Macs and Valve’s Steam Machine —especially if the AI boom continues and tech companies continue to buy up memory for AI data centers . The second flagship megaproject involves a $357 billion investment by the South Korean tech companies SK Group, GS Group, and Naver into building large-scale AI data centers in more outlying provinces, including South Chungcheong Province in the west, Gangwon Province in the east, and the North and South Jeolla Provinces in the southwest corner of South Korea. However, the new semiconductor chip fabs and the AI data centers require substantial electricity and water to operate. South Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment said it was working to secure 6.3 gigawatts of electricity and 650,000 tons of water for the southwestern chip plants, along with an additional 8 gigawatts of power to support the new AI data centers, according to The Korea Times . Renewable power and nuclear power plants would help supply the electricity needed for chip fabs and AI data centers, alongside fossil fuels, government officials said. …