South Korea Unveils $950 Billion AI and Chip Partnerships

President Lee Jae Myung hosted an artificial intelligence summit in San Francisco on July 24 and 25, 2026, to position South Korea as a global AI powerhouse. During the event, he unveiled the San Francisco AI Declaration to foster technological cooperation with the United States and introduced an AI for All project to integrate the technology into daily Korean life.

The summit resulted in $950 billion in semiconductor supply and manufacturing partnerships. SK Group agreed to pursue $750 billion in partnerships with Nvidia Corp. and other firms, including a $500 billion-plus initiative to develop large-scale AI data centers and next-generation memory. Samsung Electronics signed a $200 billion memorandum of understanding with Broadcom Inc. for foundry cooperation and memory-chip supplies. These figures represent five-year long-term purchase commitments rather than direct investments.

Infrastructure developments include a 2-gigawatt data center by SK Telecom expected online by 2027 and a $10 billion AI factory by Naver, supported by Nvidia Corp. and Brookfield. Additionally, Hyundai Motor Group partnered with Waymo for an autonomous vehicle foundry and with Nvidia Corp. for a robotic reference platform.

President Lee met with executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Broadcom Inc. to urge participation in South Korea's semiconductor production clusters. While most agreements focused on hardware, Anthropic agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding with South Korea's science ministry regarding AI security and the cyber industry.