A spokesperson for Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has confirmed that the company plans to bring forward the operational start date of its first chip manufacturing plant in Yongin, south of Seoul, to 2029, reducing the overall construction timeline by up to two years. This acceleration is driven by surging demand for memory chips and the global AI infrastructure boom.
The facility is part of South Korea's planned Yongin National Industrial Complex and was previously scheduled to commence operations between 2030 and 2031. The earlier launch will help Samsung Electronics respond more swiftly to the rapidly growing global market demand for AI chips.
This construction speed-up is a component of the large-scale expansion plan Samsung announced last month. The chipmaking giant has committed to investing 2030 trillion won (approximately $1.35 trillion) to expand its two key semiconductor production bases in Pyeongtaek and Yongin. Concurrently, it plans to spend 400 trillion won (around $265 billion) on building two new wafer fabrication plants in Gwangju, in the southwest of the country.
These series of investments form a core pillar of South Korea's "three super-scale industry projects," with the other two major initiatives focusing on the robotics industry and the construction of AI data centers.
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