The Democratic Party noted on the 18th, "China is investing 640 trillion won, equivalent to our country's annual budget, in research and development. How can we create international competitiveness in the AI (artificial intelligence) era with an investment of 3 trillion won?"
Director General Heo Young of the Democratic Party held a meeting on the supplementary budget for fostering innovative industries such as AI, semiconductors, and biopharmaceuticals, and supporting struggling industries at the National Assembly that afternoon and stated, "We talk about investing 3 trillion won to leap into the top three AI countries by 2030, but a supplementary budget is necessary to create a competitive country in the AI era."
Director General Heo emphasized, "Even though the state should proactively invest financially in areas such as research and development to allow the private sector to thrive further, our country is losing such opportunities and falling behind due to the emergency martial law shock and international tariff shock," and stated, "We must quickly regain our status through proper leadership by the public and supplementary budgets."
Park Chan-dae, the floor leader who attended the meeting, emphasized, "Measures to diagnose the tariff war crisis and specific support policies must be prepared as soon as possible, and bold support and prompt execution of the supplementary budget to secure competitiveness in the advanced technology industry must also be carried out."
It was also mentioned that competitiveness must be fostered not only for large corporations such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix but also for semiconductor materials, parts, and equipment companies and their partners.
Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Nam-geun said, "Until now, we have supported by focusing on cultivating large semiconductor corporations, but we need to enhance the competitiveness of the entire industrial ecosystem," and added, "We need to actively inject finances when forming semiconductor growth funds, AI funds, and advanced industry funds."
On this day, the industry demanded government financial support. Ha Jung-woo, head of Naver Cloud Center, argued, "If it is difficult to support specific corporations with GPUs (graphics processing units), the government should support AI corporations in a 50% government fund and 50% private fund format."
An Gi-hyun, executive director of the Semiconductor Industry Association, also stated, "We must ensure that immediate financial input is provided in the Pyeongtaek and Yongin industrial complexes where semiconductor manufacturing facility investments are underway to prevent delays and losses in corporate investments due to short-term poor business conditions."