South Korea Risks Running Out of Power for Its AI Chip Factories

A Dizzying Number

According to a report published on July 1, 2026 by the Chosun Ilbo, Samsung and SK Hynix will need an additional 27.7 gigawatts of power capacity by 2040 to run their semiconductor complexes and data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence. This staggering figure is equivalent, according to the experts cited, to building roughly 20 new nuclear reactors just to meet this specific industrial demand.

This revelation puts South Korea in front of a major strategic dilemma: how to power the next generation of mega chip factories without which the country would lose its position as global leader in a sector where international competition, notably from Taiwan and the United States, keeps intensifying every year.

Why This Story Extends Far Beyond South Korea

What's currently unfolding in South Korea illustrates a much broader challenge facing the entire Western world and its technology allies: the artificial intelligence revolution demands such massive quantities of electricity that even the most technologically advanced economies are struggling to keep pace with the energy demand generated by their own cutting-edge industries.

If industrial giants like Samsung and SK Hynix, despite being at the cutting edge of global semiconductor innovation, are hitting such a concrete energy wall, that should alert every Western economy to the scale of the structural challenge that comes with the global race for artificial intelligence.

A 10.3-Gigawatt Shortfall as Early as 2038

The problem isn't limited to some distant horizon. According to projections cited in the Chosun Ilbo report, South Korea already faces a projected energy shortfall of 10.3 gigawatts by 2038, well before the 2040 deadline cited for Samsung and SK Hynix's full needs.

This tight timeline means the South Korean government has less than fifteen years to close a colossal energy gap, a timeframe several energy infrastructure experts consider extremely ambitious given the usual construction timelines for new power generation capacity, particularly nuclear.

Government Assurances Seen as Too Vague

Experts cited by Forbes warn that the South Korean government has so far offered only vague assurances about how it plans to close this energy shortfall, without a detailed, costed plan guaranteeing that Samsung's and SK Hynix's mega industrial projects will actually have the electricity they need on schedule.

This lack of a concrete, verifiable plan particularly worries international investors and partners betting on South Korea as a stable pillar of the global supply chain for advanced semiconductors, essential to the functioning of the entire Western tech industry.

The Energy Hunger of AI Data Centers

Data centers dedicated to training and running artificial intelligence models consume considerably more electricity than traditional computing infrastructure, largely because of the massive computing power required to process workloads tied to the most advanced AI systems currently in development.

This technical reality, combined with semiconductor manufacturing itself being particularly energy-intensive due to high-precision production processes, creates a dual pressure on South Korea's power grid, which must simultaneously supply chip manufacturing and the infrastructure that later uses those chips.

A Global Race That Leaves No Room to Breathe

According to Forbes, this artificial intelligence-driven energy pressure doesn't only affect South Korea, but represents a global challenge for every economy investing heavily in cutting-edge computing, including the United States and several European countries facing similar strains on their own national power grids.

This global race for computing power, in which every country seeks to secure a lasting competitive edge, is now turning energy availability into a geopolitical factor as decisive as access to traditional strategic raw materials like rare earths.

Twenty New Reactors, a Titanic Undertaking

Building roughly twenty new nuclear reactors to meet Samsung's and SK Hynix's future energy needs would represent one of the largest energy infrastructure projects ever undertaken by South Korea, a country that already holds globally recognized expertise in civilian nuclear technology.

This South Korean nuclear expertise, demonstrated notably through reactor export contracts to several countries around the world, could serve as a major asset in accelerating the construction of this new capacity, though planning, regulatory approval, and construction timelines remain considerable even for an experienced player in the sector.

The Social Acceptability Challenges to Overcome

Beyond the purely technical and financial challenges, building twenty new nuclear reactors will also have to contend with questions of social acceptability, a sensitive issue in several democracies, including South Korea, where public opinion on nuclear energy remains divided despite its central role in national energy strategy.

The success of this massive nuclear program will therefore depend as much on the South Korean government's ability to maintain a lasting political and social consensus as on its purely technical and financial capacity to deliver a project of this scale on schedule.

A Direct Risk to the Global Supply Chain

If South Korea fails to close this energy shortfall on schedule, the consequences would extend far beyond its national borders, since Samsung and SK Hynix rank among the most critical suppliers of advanced semiconductors for the entire global tech industry, including American giants dependent on these components for their own artificial intelligence products.

A slowdown in South Korean production capacity, caused by insufficiently anticipated energy constraints, could trigger cascading repercussions across the entire Western technology supply chain, at a time when global demand for these components continues to grow at a steady pace.

Investors Are Watching This Story Closely

According to financial analyses relayed by the Chosun Ilbo, international investors are closely watching how this energy story develops, aware that South Korea's ability to deliver on its industrial ambitions in the semiconductor sector will directly depend on its ability to solve this complex energy equation on the announced timeline.

This energy uncertainty could, according to some analysts, influence future investment decisions by certain tech companies that may seek to further diversify their semiconductor supply sources to reduce their dependence on a region facing significant structural constraints.

A Lesson for South Korea's Allies

This South Korean energy challenge should serve as a wake-up call for all allied Western economies, including the United States and the European Union, which are also pursuing considerable artificial intelligence ambitions without always having fully anticipated the massive energy needs this technological race concretely entails.

If even South Korea, known for the solidity of its long-term industrial planning, finds itself facing such a projected energy shortfall, that suggests other Western economies could also discover, sometimes too late, the true scale of energy investment needed to sustainably support their own artificial intelligence ambitions.

The Urgency of Energy Coordination Among Allies

Given this reality, several experts are calling for greater coordination between Western economies and their technology partners like South Korea, to share best practices in energy planning and prevent each country's individual race toward artificial intelligence from running into the same structural obstacles in isolation.

This coordination could notably include the exchange of expertise in nuclear technology or other stable energy sources capable of meeting the massive, continuous demand of the next-generation technology infrastructure all these countries are now seeking to develop.

The Potential Role of Renewable Energy

Beyond the massive nuclear program under consideration, several experts suggest South Korea will also need to accelerate the development of its renewable energy capacity, notably offshore wind and large-scale solar, to diversify its electricity sources and reduce its dependence on a single energy technology in the face of such considerable demand.

This energy diversification, while necessary according to several industry analysts, also presents considerable challenges in terms of deployment timelines and production stability, critical factors for AI data centers that require constant, reliable power around the clock.

The Importance of Advanced Energy Storage

Large-scale energy storage technologies also represent a key element of the solution being considered by South Korean planners, allowing them to offset the natural intermittency of renewable sources while guaranteeing the continuous supply needed by semiconductor factories that cannot tolerate any significant interruption to their power supply.

The development of these storage technologies, combined with planned nuclear expansion, could give South Korea a more resilient energy architecture, capable of meeting both current industrial needs and the country's future technological ambitions in artificial intelligence.

Anticipating Rather Than Reacting

The South Korean case demonstrates the crucial importance, for any Western government aiming to stay competitive in the artificial intelligence race, of anticipating now the massive energy needs that will inevitably accompany this technology's development, rather than discovering this structural challenge once it has become urgent and far more costly to resolve.

This kind of anticipation requires early investment in national energy infrastructure, political decisions often difficult to sell in the short term to electorates more focused on immediate concerns, but whose cost of inaction could prove considerably higher a decade from now.

An Opportunity for Western Technological Leadership

Western governments that manage to proactively solve this complex energy equation, before their own tech industries hit the same wall now documented in South Korea, will enjoy a lasting competitive advantage in the global race for artificial intelligence against rivals like China.

This opportunity for technological leadership, grounded in rigorous energy planning rather than improvisation, could well become one of the deciding factors separating winning nations from losing ones in this global technology competition over the coming decades.

A Challenge That Redefines Industrial Priorities

The case of South Korea illustrates with brutal clarity that the artificial intelligence revolution won't be won solely on the terrain of algorithms and chip architectures, but just as much on the far more concrete terrain of nations' ability to produce enough electricity to power this unprecedented technological transformation.

The 27.7 gigawatts needed by Samsung and SK Hynix by 2040 represent just one example among many of a phenomenon that will inevitably affect every technologically advanced economy, forcing each of them to fundamentally rethink its national energy infrastructure priorities.

Why the West Must Act Now

To preserve its technological edge against rivals like China, which is also investing heavily in its own energy capacity to support its artificial intelligence ambitions, the West and its allies like South Korea can no longer afford to treat the energy question as secondary to pure technological innovation.

The outcome of this South Korean energy challenge, whether or not the country manages to close its projected shortfall on schedule, will likely shape the global balance of technological power for decades to come, an issue every Western decision-maker should follow with the utmost attention.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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