[DigitalToday reporter Seok Dae-geon] "As South Korea makes long-term decisions on where to place semiconductor, artificial intelligence (AI) and data centre infrastructure and how to supply power, this is a rare opportunity to design power generation, transmission, storage and industrial facilities together from the outset."

Darcie Draudt-Vejares (다르시 드라우트 베하레스), a fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), offered that advice on a megaproject in which the government, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix will invest 1,000 trillion won. Clean chips refer to semiconductors produced using low-carbon electricity such as renewable energy.

Draudt-Vejares is a Korea studies fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. She is a political scientist who studies policy coordination in advanced industries such as semiconductors, batteries and AI, and how demographic change affects national competitiveness, using South Korea as a representative case. She is the lead author of the "Clean Chips" report published by the Johns Hopkins University Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab.

In an interview with DigitalToday, Draudt-Vejares stressed that the criteria for semiconductor competitiveness have changed. "Semiconductor competitiveness is no longer only about subsidies, talent and supply chain security," she said. "Access to stable, affordable low-carbon power is becoming part of the competitiveness equation." As countries compete to attract new fabs, she said, power costs, reliability and carbon intensity determine investment decisions and the ability to meet customer requirements.

She said pressure from buyers has spread beyond a single company. "The pressure is real, and it is broader than a single buyer like Apple," she said. "As major technology companies demand emissions reductions from suppliers, clean power is no longer an ESG reporting issue. It has become an issue of whether Korean companies can remain competitive suppliers within major technology ecosystems."

She said AI expansion is why semiconductor companies can no longer avoid energy issues. "AI rests not only on software but on a physical industrial system of advanced chips, data centres, transmission infrastructure and massive power," she said. "South Korea is expanding semiconductor production and AI infrastructure at the same time."

She said power supply remains a key constraint, also explaining why Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are moving up the schedule for the first fab in Yongin. Domestic electricity demand is expected to rise. SK plans to build AI data centres totalling 15 gigawatts in stages, centred on SK Telecom. President Lee Jae-myung (이재명) also cited shortages of power and industrial water as reasons for new hubs, saying at the Cheong Wa Dae "National Report Meeting on the Three Mega Projects for Korea's Great Leap Forward" that sites centred on Yongin and Pyeongtaek have already reached their limits.

Draudt-Vejares said South Korea's energy dependence is directly tied to industrial security, beyond whether it pursues climate policy. "South Korea imports about 80 percent of its energy and cannot pull electricity from neighbouring power grids in a crisis," she said. "The recent Hormuz incident showed that shocks in global fuel markets can immediately become an industrial and economic security issue."

◆"Energy strategy is semiconductor strategy...it must be designed together from the start"

At the national report meeting held in June, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won (최태원) mentioned investments of about 1,000 trillion won for AI data centres and about 1,100 trillion won to expand semiconductor supply, and allocated 400 trillion won to a new cluster in the southwest. The government also supported that by outlining plans to make the southwest a second semiconductor production base and build 4 memory fabs with corporate investment worth 800 trillion won.

Energy was cited as the basis for site selection. President Lee said the area along the southwest coast has abundant industrial water and, in particular, abundant renewable energy, explaining why companies chose the region. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy presented a nationwide cluster plan linking the Seoul metropolitan area and the southwest as production hubs, the Chungcheong region as a packaging hub, and the southeast and Daegyeong region as a materials, parts and equipment hub. The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment decided to supply 6.3 gigawatts of power to semiconductor factories in the southwest and about 15 gigawatts to Yongin.

Draudt-Vejares said the real opportunity lies not in location but in design. "The opportunity is not simply the fact that new clusters are being built where renewable energy is abundant," she said, raising the question. "South Korea is now making major long-term decisions about where to locate semiconductor, AI and data centre infrastructure and how to supply power," she said. "This is a rare opportunity to plan power generation, transmission, storage and industrial facilities together from the outset, instead of tearing them up and reworking them later."

Could South Korea redesign around existing infrastructure. Draudt-Vejares said she sees it as entirely possible. "South Korea has repeatedly tried to turn external constraints into opportunities for industrial upgrading through coordination among government, industry, infrastructure and investment," she said. "The current gamble to secure a comparative advantage in the compute ecosystem makes improvements to underlying energy infrastructure particularly important."

She advised Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to place securing clean power within their semiconductor strategy and broaden ties with the global compute ecosystem. "The two companies are treating, and should treat, an energy strategy that includes long-term clean power procurement, efficiency, storage and grid availability as part of their semiconductor strategy," she said.

"The competitiveness of the two companies also depends on embedding deeply in the global compute ecosystem and building complementary partnerships overseas," she said. "Stable energy is part of the conditions for maintaining South Korea's strategic importance in AI."