Samsung's semiconductor division posted a 48-fold jump in profit, while SK Hynix's first-quarter profit rose 406%, both driven by surging AI chip demand.1 Samsung and SK Hynix have each topped $1 trillion in market capitalization, a first for Korean chipmakers.1
The two firms join Nvidia and Taiwan's TSMC in a small club of companies capturing outsized returns from the global AI buildout. Chip exports are now lifting South Korea's overall GDP figures, with the two firms anchoring a growing share of industrial output.1 Well-paid semiconductor engineers have become sought-after prospects on the domestic marriage market.1
Labor unions at both firms have negotiated bonus-sharing deals tied to the record profits, funneling part of the windfall directly to employees.1 Policymakers have gone further, floating a proposed "AI dividend" to extend some of the gains beyond the two companies' workforces to the broader public.1
Not everyone is celebrating evenly. The Bank of Korea has warned the boom is producing a K-shaped economy, with sharp gains concentrated in chipmakers and their employees while other sectors lag.1 The same divergence is showing up elsewhere, as AI infrastructure spending funnels wealth toward a narrow band of hardware suppliers from Taiwan to the United States.
South Korea's experience offers an early test case for how AI-boom economies handle uneven gains. Seoul must decide whether to spread the chip windfall through mechanisms like the proposed AI dividend, or let the K-shaped split widen as Samsung and SK Hynix keep riding AI demand to fresh records.
