[Anchor]

Next Monday, President Lee Jae-myung will preside over a national report meeting where corporate investment plans, dubbed the three mega-projects, will be unveiled. Attention is particularly focused on the Honam semiconductor cluster, but the key challenge remains how to ensure a stable power supply.

Reporter Jeong Seong-jin has the story.

[Reporter]

The three mega-projects announced by Kim Yong-beom, Chief of Staff for Policy at the Presidential Office, consist of semiconductors, AI data centers, and physical AI.

Regional hub investments are expected to be pursued, with semiconductors in the Honam region, AI data centers in the Chungcheong and Gangwon regions, and physical AI in the Yeongnam region.

[Kim Yong-beom/Chief of Staff for Policy at the Presidential Office (YouTube 'Kim Ou-joon's Humility is Hard, News Factory'): This is an opportunity to explain the programs created through the joint efforts of the government and corporations. The figures that will be presented will likely be quite unfamiliar.]

In particular, for the Honam semiconductor cluster, plans are being reviewed for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to establish the entire process from production to packaging.

The investment scale is expected to reach 500 trillion won.

As this would effectively be the first large-scale, high-tech semiconductor production base outside the Seoul metropolitan area, infrastructure development is the greatest challenge.

A single semiconductor fabrication plant (fab) requires over 1GW of power, equivalent to the output of one nuclear power plant, and due to the nature of the process, a stable 24-hour power supply is essential.

While the Honam region has a power self-sufficiency rate exceeding 200 percent, meaning it has surplus electricity, half of its production facilities rely on renewable energy such as solar and wind power, which are highly susceptible to weather conditions.

[Yoo Seung-hoon/Professor, Department of Future Energy Convergence, Seoul National University of Science and Technology: Semiconductor companies can only feel secure enough to build factories if natural gas power generation and the restart of aging nuclear power plants are combined.]

Securing high-level talent is also a task at hand.

As the southern Gyeonggi region, including Pyeongtaek and Icheon, is often called the southern limit for employment, efforts to improve living conditions to attract talent and local initiatives to cultivate talent must take place simultaneously.

[Lee Jong-hwan/Professor, Department of System Semiconductor Engineering, Sangmyung University: Whether through industrial cooperation or the creation of contract departments, it will be very important to foster human resources by linking with local universities in any form.]

Building an ecosystem of partner companies, including those in materials, parts, and equipment, is also key to success.

The government plans to provide up to 100 percent support for infrastructure costs such as power through the Special Act on Semiconductors, which will take effect this coming August, and also intends to improve living conditions, including housing and education.

Reported by Jeong Seong-jin | Video by Shin Se-eun | Graphics by Choi Jae-young | Produced by SBS Digital News