By Choonsik Yoo ( July 3, 2026, 04:46 GMT | Comment) -- South Korea has unveiled a $974 billion long-term investment plan to expand AI memory-chip production, robotics and data centers, with companies such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Naver set to lead the investments. However, political controversy has quickly overshadowed the announcement, with critics questioning the opaque policymaking process, the choice of investment location, the timing ahead of the ruling party’s leadership election and the absence of key AI policymakers. While the government expects the AI-driven semiconductor supercycle to sustain export growth and lift tax revenue, market participants remain wary of the memory-chip industry’s boom-and-bust cycles and have assigned limited credibility to investment projections extending a decade into the future.South Korea’s government this week unveiled a medium- to long-term investment plan worth about $1 trillion on the back of soaring exports of high-performance artificial intelligence chips, but the announcement failed to generate much enthusiasm amid talk that political considerations outweighed economic logic....
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