The South Korean Government Denies Plans to Establish Think Tank to ‘Share’ Chipmakers’ Massive Profits

BlockBeats News, July 1st, according to Yonhap News Agency, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy issued a statement today formally denying the rumor circulating online that the government plans to establish a new think tank to leverage the massive profits of chipmakers. The statement said: "The rumor circulating online about Seoul having sent letters to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, planning to establish a government-led profit-sharing think tank is completely false. Strict measures will be taken against those who maliciously spread such misleading information, and will be referred to investigative authorities. The background of this rumor is that with the AI boom driving South Korean chipmakers to achieve historic profits, the domestic discussion on how to use the additional tax revenue generated to support long-term growth is increasingly heating up.

Last month, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung proposed the idea of a universal basic income subsidy in an interview with The Economist, stating that it could "distribute some of the excess profits to the general public," referring directly to the recent debate on how chipmakers should share their windfall profits. The presidential office later explained that the remarks were not targeting specific companies but rather pointing to the challenges that South Korea must ultimately face in the AI transformation process. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, as global leaders in the High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) market, have seen a surge in profits during this AI supercycle, and the issue of the social distribution of their massive capital gains is gradually entering the policy discussion.

According to Bitget market data, the South Korean KOSPI index closed down 2.04%, with SK Hynix falling by 3.4% and Samsung Electronics by 5.84%.