Korea Rivals Taiwan in Chip Prowess 

Although Taiwan’s Silicon Shield dominates global semiconductor manufacturing, South Korea is catching up and becoming equally indispensable. 

The key Korean advantage centers on high-performance memory chips. It is one of only three countries (with Taiwan and the US) able to manufacture these crucial leading‑edge chips, making it a chokepoint.  

AI models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT have a voracious appetite for cutting-edge memory, which speed up connections with NVIDIA and AMD chips.