The memorandum of understanding (MoU) includes plans for Arm to establish a chip design school in South Korea, leveraging the company’s expertise to train approximately 1,400 high-level chip design specialists. The initiative aims to bolster the country’s relatively underdeveloped system-semiconductor and fabless segments, key components of the semiconductor ecosystem, Kim Yong-beom told reporters.
Strategic Focus on AI and Chips
Arm, a British chip and software company, earns revenue by licensing its chip designs and collecting royalties. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Friday, emphasized that chip demand will surge as AI technologies advance.
Son stated that AI has the potential to surpass human intelligence, predicting that Artificial Superintelligence could become 10,000 times smarter than people. “It is time to move beyond the notion that humans can fully control or manage AI and instead consider how to coexist with it harmoniously,” he said.
South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung meets with Masayoshi Son, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group Corp., at the Presidential House in Seoul, South Korea, December 5, 2025. Kim Min-Hee/Pool via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
South Korea’s Global Ambitions
South Korea aims to become one of the world’s top three AI powers, with President Lee recently meeting global tech leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
In October, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix signed letters of intent to supply memory chips for OpenAI’s data centres, while Nvidia announced plans to provide more than 260,000 of its most advanced AI chips to South Korea’s government and leading corporations, including Samsung.
The collaboration with Arm is part of a broader strategy to position South Korea at the forefront of semiconductor innovation and AI development, supporting both domestic growth and the country’s competitive edge in the global technology landscape.