Seoul: South Korea and the European Union are binding their economies more tightly around semiconductors, treating the chips that run everything from cars to data centres as a shared strategic asset rather than a simple export.
The push crystallised at the eleventh EU-Republic of Korea summit, held in Brussels on 10 June, where leaders launched a Competitiveness Partnership and set up a High-Level Economic Dialogue. That dialogue folds trade, investment, industrial policy, artificial intelligence and economic security into one channel, and semiconductors sit near the top of the agenda.
Europe’s motive is straightforward. The bloc wants secure access to advanced chips and hopes to draw more Korean investment onto European soil, where firms like Samsung and SK Hynix could anchor local supply. Korea, in turn, wants dependable demand and a partner that will not weaponise access to the technology and raw materials its fabs depend on.
The cooperation reaches beyond the wafer. Both sides pledged to secure critical raw materials, protect sensitive technologies and deepen collaboration on batteries, the industrial cluster where Korean manufacturers already lead. A Digital Trade Agreement signed alongside the summit aims to smooth cross-border data flows and lower the friction that slows technology commerce.
Economic security frames the whole effort. Both partners have watched supply shocks and export controls disrupt the chip trade, and both worry about over-reliance on any single source for the tools, materials and finished components that fabs require. By aligning their approaches, they hope to build resilience without retreating into costly self-sufficiency.
Artificial intelligence gives the partnership fresh urgency. The most advanced chips now feed the data centres training large models, and control over that hardware increasingly shapes who leads in the technology. Brussels and Seoul both trail the United States and China in raw compute, and cooperation offers each a way to close part of the gap.
The obstacles are practical. Korean firms weigh European labour costs, energy prices and permitting delays against the pull of subsidies in the United States, and Europe’s own chip ambitions have moved slower than its rhetoric. Turning summit language into fabs on the ground will test whether the partnership can deliver more than communiqués.
The strategic logic nonetheless endures. Two advanced economies that share democratic values and industrial strength are choosing to hedge together against a fractured technology landscape. If the Competitiveness Partnership produces real investment and working supply lines, it could become a template for how middle powers protect their footing in the age of the chip.
