Full support needed for AI development

Only radical, determined and effective support to buttress Korea’s chip edge can reap the fruits of strengthened national competitiveness, economic growth, and job increases.

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration is doubling down on its backing for Korean chipmakers in the battlefield over AI. In a Cabinet meeting in the presidential office on Tuesday to closely check issues with the development of AI technology, President Yoon proposed the AI Chip Initiative to make Korea one of the world’s top three powers in AI technology.

To support the initiative, the administration promised that it will scale up government investments in research and development for cutting-edge AI chips and create a large-scale fund to bolster the growth of semiconductor producers.

Yoon also pledged to set up a presidential commission presided over by the president himself to coordinate government-private cooperation in producing advanced AI chips to help lead the market.

Since the center of the chip market is moving fast toward AI chips, the president’s pledges translate into a determination to follow in the footsteps of the memory chip sector to now create a new chip legend for the country. We welcome the government’s dash to take part in the fierce global chip race to take the chip leadership.

Governments around the world have been vying with subsidies and various incentives to strengthen their chip manufacturing capability on their home turf. Japan is subsidizing a whopping 1.2 trillion yen ($7.9 billion) for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC)’s next-generation chip facilities in Kumamoto prefecture with an ambition to revitalize its chip production habitat.

The United States is also spending astronomically to rebuild its own chipmaking infrastructure. It pledged to provide $19.5 billion to Intel’s new foundry, followed up by a $6.6 billion subsidy and a $5 billion low-interest loan for TSMC’s facility in the U.S. Samsung Electronics which also promised to build new facilities in Texas is expected to get $6 billion to $7 billion in subsidy for its chipmaking projects in America.

In the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Yoon emphatically said, “We must go all-out as if in a wartime and come up with a bold support measure compatible with our conditions.” In a meaningful step earlier, the president promised that he himself will take charge of the power and water supply needed for the 622-trillion-won ($459 billion) mega chip cluster in Yongin, Gyeonggi.

If the president had simply reiterated the promise with just a blueprint of the chip cluster, it could have been seen as a rhetoric only to win votes from voters in the chip belt in Suwon and Yongin. The government must not forget that only radical, determined and effective support to buttress Korea’s chip edge can reap the fruits of strengthened national competitiveness, economic growth, and job increases.