Three of South Korea's largest conglomerates committed a combined KRW 392 trillion (approximately USD 270 billion) to the Chungcheong region on July 2, as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Celltrion joined President Lee Jae-myung at an Asan ceremony the government billed as the country's "second Tokyo Declaration."
The announcements form the central pillar of Korea's National Mega-Project initiative, which is redirecting advanced-industry investment away from the greater Seoul metropolitan area. The Southwest corridor anchored by Gwangju had already drawn KRW 896 trillion in pledges; the Chungcheong package brings the two-region total to KRW 1,288 trillion, with a tentative KRW 270 trillion earmarked for the Yeongnam zone still to be formalized. Total corporate investment pledged across all three mega-project zones now exceeds KRW 4,700 trillion — more than six times the government's annual budget of KRW 729 trillion.
SK Hynix: KRW 100 Trillion for Cheongju NAND Hub
At the event held at Samsung Display's second campus in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, SK Hynix CEO Kwak No-jeong said the company would invest a total of KRW 100 trillion in its Cheongju complex — the company's primary NAND flash manufacturing hub. The figure aligns with SK Hynix's previously disclosed global KRW 100 trillion investment program, and Wednesday's announcement designated Cheongju as the primary domestic anchor for that outlay.
Samsung: Lee Jae-yong Commits to 'Ultra-Gap' IT Hub
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong delivered a welcome address pledging to develop Chungcheong into a "global IT hub," invoking the company's trademark "ultra-gap" (초격차) strategy. Samsung Display — whose Asan campus hosted the ceremony — and other Samsung group affiliates operating semiconductor research, display and consumer electronics facilities across the four Chungcheong provinces are included in the regional investment framework.
Presidential Remarks: 'Voluntary, Not Coerced'
President Lee Jae-myung used the occasion to push back against opposition criticism that the government had pressured corporations into regional investment pledges. "Some people think I pressured Chairman Lee Jae-yong into making Samsung invest — that old-fashioned thinking cannot work in the modern world," he said, calling such a view a "relic of the state-directed economy era."
Opposition politicians had alleged the initiative disproportionately favors the Honam (Southwest) region. The president dismissed those concerns, arguing that companies should invest where economic efficiency is highest and that demanding equal regional distribution regardless of industrial logic would undermine corporate viability. Four central ministries — Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy; Ministry of Economy and Finance; Ministry of Education; and the Ministry of Planning and Budget — alongside the four Chungcheong local governments co-signed a memorandum of understanding at the ceremony to provide matching infrastructure commitments.
Anthropic Weighs Samsung 2nm Foundry for Custom AI Chip
On the same day, The Information reported that Anthropic — maker of the Claude AI model — is in early-stage discussions about using Samsung Electronics' 2-nanometer process technology as a potential foundry partner for a proprietary AI accelerator. The project remains at a preliminary stage; no chip design or production work has commenced, and the effort may not ultimately advance to full-scale production. Google is separately weighing whether to shift some next-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) production to Samsung, the report added.
Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology participated in Anthropic's most recent USD 65 billion funding round. Should an Anthropic foundry contract materialize, it would represent a significant win for Samsung Foundry as it seeks to close the yield-and-customer gap with TSMC at the 2nm node. Nvidia holds an estimated 74% share of the AI chip market — a proportion that has risen rather than fallen as inference-focused competition has intensified, according to The Information.
Broader Context: Reorienting Korea's Industrial Map
The Chungcheong corridor — encompassing South and North Chungcheong provinces, Sejong special self-governing city and Daejeon metropolitan city — is already home to SK Hynix's NAND operations in Cheongju, Samsung Display and Samsung Semiconductor R&D campuses in Asan and Cheonan, and Celltrion's biologics production network. The ceremony signals that infrastructure commitments in power grid, water supply, transport and workforce pipelines from central and local governments will accompany the corporate pledges, mirroring the structure of the Southwest announcement.
The Lee administration's industrial policy thesis holds that non-capital-city regions can attract frontier technology investment if infrastructure conditions match those of the Seoul metropolitan area, rather than through top-down government directives. The combined scale of announced investments now dwarfs conventional government-led regional development programs, with private corporate commitments effectively financing the industrialization of multiple provinces simultaneously.
Sources: ETNews · Chosun Biz · Yonhap · Newsis / The Information
