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President Lee Jae-myung delivers remarks during the "Strategy to Nurture Innovative Future New Security Enterprises" meeting held at the Blue House on the 26th. / Courtesy of Yonhap News

President Lee Jae-myung will preside over the "National Report Meeting on the 3 Major Mega Projects for South Korea's Great Leap Forward" at the Blue House on the 29th. Serving as a platform to directly explain large-scale investment plans and government support measures across three major sectors—semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers—to the public, the event is drawing keen attention over whether the regional investment blueprints of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will take concrete shape.

According to the Blue House, this report meeting has been arranged to complete a Korean-style artificial intelligence (AI) industrial revolution. It is a venue to jointly disclose corporations' investment plans in semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centers alongside government support measures. The slogan for the national report meeting is "Beyond Recovery to a Great Leap Forward, Hyper-Gap South Korea."

The event will commence with opening remarks by President Lee. Following this, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jung-kwan and Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon will present the plans for the 3 major mega projects.

Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Sung-whan and Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yoon-deuk are scheduled to explain measures for supplying power and water, as well as plans for establishing hub cities necessary for the project's implementation.

Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won will announce each group's respective regional investment plans. Afterward, they will engage in discussions alongside other attendees. Particularly, as major conglomerates including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are reported to disclose massive investment plans, including the creation of a new semiconductor cluster in the Honam region, intense interest is focusing on the actual scale and specific details of the investments.

Kim Yong-bum, the Blue House Senior Secretary for Policy, previously appeared on the YouTube show "Kim Ou-joon's News Factory" on the 26th and remarked, "The overall scale and the emerging figures are so massive that people might wonder, 'Is this for real?'"

However, ahead of the disclosure of the project's blueprint, controversies continue to linger surrounding the rationale behind selecting the Honam region and the challenges regarding power and water supplies.

With the political opposition centering around the People Power Party raising criticisms regarding the feasibility and the appropriateness of the site selection, a key focus will be how effectively today's briefing can resolve related concerns.

Meanwhile, major enterprises, experts, and officials from related organizations involved in the 3 major mega projects—including Samsung Electronics, SK, LG Electronics, FuriosaAI, Robotis, HD Hyundai Robotics, GS, KT, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), and K-Water—are scheduled to attend the event.

From the government, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Koo Yun-cheol, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jung-kwan, Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Sung-whan, and Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yoon-deuk will attend. From the Blue House, Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik, Senior Secretary for Policy Kim Yong-bum, and other officials will be present.

                                                                                                       Park Young-hoon