Gwangju: South Korea plans to develop a new semiconductor production base in the country's southwestern region through 800 trillion won (US$517.9 billion) in corporate investments that will create four memory chip fabrication plants, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said Monday. Kim unveiled the investment plan to transform the Gwangju and Jeolla regions into the nation's second major semiconductor cluster, alongside the existing hub in the Seoul metropolitan area, during a national investment briefing chaired by President Lee Jae Myung at Cheong Wa Dae.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the semiconductor investment is part of the government's "three mega projects" initiative. This initiative calls for large-scale investments by chip giants Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc., as well as other companies, focusing on semiconductors, physical artificial intelligence (AI), and AI data centers.