Seoul, Nov 16 (IANS) South Korean conglomerate SK Group said on Sunday it will invest 128 trillion won ($87.9 billion) through 2028 in the domestic market, with a focus on chip manufacturing to meet the growing demand in artificial intelligence (AI) fields.

The chip-to-chemical enterprise will build four large-scale semiconductor fabrication plants over the years in its main Yongin chip cluster, south of Seoul, with the amount of investment likely to increase to up to 600 trillion won.

The announcement came after SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won unveiled the plans during a business leaders’ meeting with President Lee Jae Myung earlier in the day, to discuss efforts to spur domestic investments by major companies following the conclusion of a trade deal with the United States, reports Yonhap news agency.

Chey said during the meeting that the investments could rise to around 600 trillion won for the Yongin chip compound alone, given soaring demand for AI memory chips, including high-bandwidth memory.

SK Group plans to adjust the construction speed of the envisioned fabs depending on chip demand and market conditions, gradually expanding the investment in phases.

SK hynix Inc., the group’s semiconductor manufacturing unit, is jointly building the “Trinity Fab” with the government at the Yongin complex, a project worth 860 billion won, to boost the domestic ecosystem of semiconductor components.

It will operate as an open platform and a non-profit foundation for component-making partners, research institutions and startups.

SK Telecom Co., the mobile carrier unit and SK Broadband Co., the telecommunication arm, are in collaboration with Amazon Web Services to build an AI data center in the southeastern city of Ulsan, aiming to go into operations in 2027.

“We have continued to maintain domestic hiring of over 8,000 employees every year,” Chey said at the business leaders’ meeting. “We plan to help generate job creation of between 14,000-20,000 positions annually.”

–IANS

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