South Korea's Ministry of Finance held an emergency meeting, warning of excessive concentration in the semiconductor sector.
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South Korea's Ministry of Finance: Will closely monitor stock market volatility risks
According to Mars Finance, citing Gate data, South Korea's Ministry of Finance stated on Wednesday that Finance Minister Koo Yoon-cheol, following a meeting with the central bank governor and heads of financial regulatory agencies, agreed to closely monitor risk factors that could exacerbate stock market volatility. The Ministry of Finance stated that increased stock market volatility stemmed from profit-taking by foreign investors and institutions, portfolio rebalancing, and changes in expectations for the global AI sector. In early trading today, the South Korean KOSPI index fell as much as 4%, hitting its lowest level since May 20th, before rebounding, driven by a rally in chip stocks. The Ministry of Finance pointed out that increased concentration in the semiconductor industry has become a factor exacerbating financial market volatility.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung: Launch a "speed war" in three major projects: semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers.
According to Mars Finance, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, speaking at a joint meeting of the public and private sectors on the "three super projects"—semiconductors, physical artificial intelligence (AI), and AI data centers—held at the Blue House on the 6th, stated that the key to these three projects lies in winning the "speed battle." Lee emphasized that competition in cutting-edge industries is crucial to the fate of all nations, and the ultimate winner will be who acts faster. He stated that the government should eliminate any obstacles that companies may encounter during investment and project construction in advance, and must not allow delays in administrative approval procedures to affect investment and project implementation. Lee stated that the Blue House will establish special working groups for the three projects as soon as possible, and the government will provide maximum support. Currently, the semiconductor industry is generating a large amount of unexpected tax revenue, and the government will fully utilize relevant financial resources to provide guarantees for project construction in all aspects, including financial support. (Cailian Press)
South Korea's deputy finance minister said that the country is in close communication with Japan and its allies regarding exchange rate issues.
According to Odaily Odaily, South Korea's Deputy Finance Minister said on Thursday that South Korea is maintaining close communication with Japan and other major allies on foreign exchange issues, and warned that the won's exchange rate has seriously deviated from economic fundamentals. “We have always maintained close cooperation and information exchange with Japan and other relevant countries,” he said when asked whether South Korea would coordinate its exchange rate stabilization policy with Japan. “Currently, the Korean won exchange rate is out of sync with economic fundamentals.” When asked about any potential intervention measures, he declined to elaborate, but stated that the government is prepared to take stabilization measures should insufficient market liquidity lead to excessive exchange rate volatility. (Jinshi)
The South Korean government is considering extending the sovereign AI core GPU guarantee project, with a budget of up to 4 trillion won next year.
According to Odaily Odaily, the South Korean government is considering extending its support project for GPUs, a core resource for AI. On July 7th, industry sources indicated that the Ministry of Science and ICT is investigating the capacity of major South Korean cloud service providers to build additional GPUs, aiming to extend the "AI Computing Resource Utilization Infrastructure Enhancement Project." The core of this project involves government-funded purchases of GPUs, deployment in cloud service provider data centers, and support for industry-academia-research collaboration. Last year, the South Korean government allocated a budget of 1 trillion won, and this year it allocated 2 trillion won, securing over 20,000 GPUs. The project was originally scheduled to end this year, but with the surge in demand for advanced resources such as NVIDIA's next-generation GPU Vera Rubin, the South Korean government is developing comprehensive countermeasures, including data center efficiency optimization and new space security plans. It is reportedly already applying to the Planning and Budget Office for a "limited additional budget" for GPU security. Industry estimates suggest that, considering this year's GPU security budget and the government's intentions, next year's budget could reach a maximum of approximately 4 trillion won. Industry experts say that compared to the GPU supply itself, "equipment installation space" will be the key to the success or failure of the project, because running thousands of high-performance GPUs simultaneously requires a large power supply and advanced cooling systems, and the equipment installation space held by South Korean companies is nearing saturation. (ETNews Electronics)
South Korea plans to invest 5 trillion won in excess tax revenue from semiconductors to develop "sovereign AI" and purchase 10,000 GPUs to support a single team.
According to Beating's monitoring, the Korea Economic Daily revealed that South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT is in discussions with the Presidential Office and the Ministry of Finance, planning to utilize approximately 5 trillion won in excess tax revenue from the semiconductor industry to purchase about 10,000 of NVIDIA's most advanced Vera Rubin superchip GPU modules this year. This investment will be used to support elite teams developing world-class "sovereign AI" models. This decision stems directly from the sense of crisis caused by US export controls on cutting-edge AI models—Anthropic's Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 have been restricted from external access, forcing South Korean companies to urgently modify systems built on these models. The concept of "national strategic assetization" of AI models has thus become a reality. Currently, although four teams in South Korea—LG AI Research Institute, SK Telecom, Upstage, and Motif Technologies—are advancing independent basic model projects, each team only receives support from 700 to 800 GPUs. This dispersed investment makes it difficult to compete with globally leading models that utilize tens of thousands of GPUs. The government has therefore decided to shift to a "selection and concentration" strategy, allocating 10,000 GPUs to the best teams at once, and plans to include special funds in the supplementary budget for attracting top overseas AI talent. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung publicly stated last month that the GPU procurement pace was too slow and demanded that related funds be ensured when compiling the supplementary budget. The current global competitive window is extremely short, with companies like Anthropic and OpenAI iterating new models weekly. France, with its single-focus strategy, has surpassed Meta to become the seventh largest AI provider globally, thanks to Mistral AI. If South Korea cannot catch up in the short term, it risks becoming an "AI vassal state." The South Korean semiconductor academic community has given this positive feedback, believing that investing the funds gained from hardware prosperity into building software competitiveness is essentially an investment in the country's future. --------------------------------- Click the original link below to join the Beating · Lark AI news channel for 24/7 monitoring of global AI hotspots and news.
Lee Jae-myung: Semiconductors, displays, secondary batteries, and biomedicine are the four cutting-edge industries that will determine South Korea's future development in the AI era.
According to Mars Finance, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung stated on July 2nd that the Chungcheong region possesses enormous development potential. He believes that with strategic corporate investment and unwavering government support, it will not only become a center for cutting-edge industries in South Korea but also rise to become a world-class innovation hub leading the era of artificial intelligence (AI). Lee Jae-myung chaired a national report meeting on the vision for the development of cutting-edge industries in the Chungcheong region in Asan, South Chungcheong Province on July 2nd. After listening to presentations on investment plans for the Chungcheong region from companies such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Celltronic, he stated that semiconductors, displays, rechargeable batteries, and biomedicine are the core strategic industries determining South Korea's future development in the AI era, and the Chungcheong region is precisely the core area where these four cutting-edge industries are concentrated and have a well-developed industrial ecosystem. Lee Jae-myung stated that the government will not miss this significant opportunity to promote balanced regional development and deeply integrate the layout of cutting-edge industries, and will mobilize all available resources to actively support corporate investment, allowing companies' strategic decisions to fully realize their benefits. (Cailian Press)