Why South Korea's AI ambitions should extend beyond dominating chips
By Choonsik Yoo ( July 31, 2026, 02:04 GMT | Comment) -- South Korea’s dominance in high-bandwidth memory chips has strengthened its position in the global artificial intelligence supply chain, but industry experts warn that hardware leadership alone may prove unsustainable, arguing instead that Seoul should prioritize domestic AI models and AI factories to capture the growing economic value of tokens consumed by agentic AI services. The shift reflects the rise of “token economics,” under which value increasingly flows from AI inference rather than hardware, suggesting that reducing dependence on foreign AI providers and expanding sovereign AI infrastructure may better protect South Korea’s competitiveness.South Korea's dominance in high-end memory chips has cemented its position at the center of the global artificial intelligence supply chain, underscored by nearly $1 trillion in long-term deals announced last week at a rare event hosted by the country’s president in the US for global AI giants based there....
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