South Korea Ramps Into AI Supremacy: OpenAI's Stargate Deal Sends Samsung and SK Hynix to New Heights

The $500 billion “Stargate” push cements Korean chipmakers and data‑centre firms as keystones in global AI infrastructure ambitions

Shares surged: SK Hynix jumped to record highs, Samsung to a multi‑year peak, buoyed by their stakes in OpenAI’s expansion.,Massive memory demand: OpenAI’s Stargate may require as many as 900,000 DRAM wafers per month—more than twice current high-bandwidth memory capacity.,Korea as AI hub: The partnerships include plans for “Stargate Korea,” floating data centres, ChatGPT enterprise deployment, and regional data‑centre siting beyond Seoul.

A Win for Korea—and OpenAI

For years, South Korea has been a memory‑chip bastion, with Samsung and SK Hynix together controlling the lion’s share of DRAM and high‑bandwidth memory (HBM) production. But this deal escalates their role from supplier to infrastructure partner.

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, in Seoul for the deal, described Korea as having the “ingredients to be a global leader in AI.” He joined President Lee Jae Myung and the heads of Samsung and SK in signing off on the letters of intent.

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, in Seoul for the deal, described Korea as having the “ingredients to be a global leader in AI.” He joined President Lee Jae Myung and the heads of Samsung and SK in signing off on the letters of intent.

What matters most is the scale. The chip demand implicit in Stargate is eye-popping: 900,000 wafers monthly. That’s more than double current HBM industry capacity. From a memory‑supply perspective, this is a generational shift.

Yet it is not just about chips. The Korean partners will lean into data centre construction (via SK Telecom), floating data centre experiments (via Samsung’s engineering and shipbuilding arms), and deployment of OpenAI’s API and enterprise services at home.

Stock Market Reaction: Surge & Speculation

In the immediate term, markets welcomed the deal with gusto. SK Hynix stock soared nearly 10% (or more in some reports) to an all-time high, while Samsung gained around 3–5%, touching heights unseen in several years. The combined market impact added tens of billions to their valuations.

Analysts singled out a key worry: oversupply pressure in memory chips. But this deal could inoculate both firms against a price slide, by locking in demand. As one KB Securities analyst noted, the strategic tie may quiet fears over a price collapse.

One additional twist: the deal may carry diplomatic weight. With U.S.–Korea trade tensions ongoing, this kind of bilateral industrial cooperation on AI infrastructure could play into broader negotiations.

Stargate Korea, Floating Centres, Sovereign AI

The Korean leg of Stargate is more than a symbolic nod to Asia’s tech strength. SK Telecom and OpenAI have inked plans to develop a data center in the southwest region, branded “Stargate Korea.” Meanwhile, Samsung’s construction and heavy‑industry arms (C&T, Heavy Industries) will explore floating data centres, possibly tied to floating power plants and control centres.

Floating data centres are still experimental—but they promise advantages in cooling efficiency, land avoidance, and modular deployment. The idea is clever, though engineering and maintenance challenges are formidable.

Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT has also joined in via a memorandum to explore siting data centres outside the dense Seoul area, to spread regional growth.

Risks, Unknowns & Strategic Stakes

As large-scale as this is, significant uncertainties remain:

Delivery timing: The 900,000 wafers per month tipping point is a future goal, not an immediate order.,Technical integration: Building AI-scale data centres—especially afloat—requires complex orchestration of power, cooling, networking, reliability.,Geopolitics: Deep U.S. involvement in AI and chip policy means any deals with Korea will be watched closely.,Sovereign control: Korea is betting that by anchoring itself in Stargate, it avoids becoming a mere supplier and instead becomes a hub in its own right.

From Seoul’s perspective, this aligns with President Lee’s ambition to position Korea among the top three AI nations by 2027; a rapid timeline.

What This Means for Asia

Korea’s elevation in AI infrastructure contrasts with a more fragmented landscape elsewhere in Asia. Governments and firms in Singapore, Japan, India or Vietnam will look closely: can they likewise attach themselves as indispensable nodes in global AI supply chains?

Singapore, already a tech and data centre hub, is well placed. But memory and AI model capacity is a very high bar. Korea’s model may become a blueprint, or a warning: scale, integration, state support, and upstream supply control matter as much as coding and models.

For AI in Asia the lesson is that the future of intelligence is deeply architectural. The chips, the cooling, the power stations, the floating platforms they are as consequential as the algorithms.

To anyone building AI firms in the region: your path may increasingly depend not just on models or datasets, but on geopolitics, infrastructure access, and your ability to plug into initiatives like Stargate. A recent report by the World Economic Forum on "AI Governance in the Age of Generative AI" highlights the increasing importance of infrastructure and geopolitical considerations in AI development.