SOUTH KOREA wants to become the factory for breakthrough technologies

SMRs, fusion, tandem solar cells, quantum chips, satellites, biotechnology and critical minerals: SOUTH KOREA has selected seven technologies it wants to turn into growth engines over the next twenty years. Behind this apparent dispersion lies a familiar strategy. SEOUL is seeking less to win every scientific race than to become indispensable to the industrialization of whoever does. It is a playbook already tested in semiconductors, batteries and shipbuilding, but this time it will have to be applied to technologies whose architecture — and in some cases even their markets — do not yet exist.

In early August, before opening a meeting devoted to SOUTH KOREA’s future growth engines, President LEE JAE MYUNG inspected models of a small nuclear reactor and a quantum computer displayed at the BLUE HOUSE. Models have one advantage that industrial policies rarely possess: they make the future immediately visible.

The government then unveiled seven programs, grouped under the SEED initiative — Strategic Emerging Engines for Disruptive Innovation. A modular nuclear reactor is expected to reach commercialization in 2035, a domestic 100-qubit quantum processor is targeted for 2029, a first lunar mission is due to land in 2030 followed by a second in 2032, and a Korean low-Earth-orbit satellite network is expected to be operational by 2035.

By the same deadline, the country wants to have commercialized a product based on a brain-computer interface and built its own innovative fusion reactor.

The program also includes tandem solar cells with efficiencies above 35%, offshore wind turbines exceeding 20 MW, electrolysis facilities ranging from 50 to 100 MW, and a strategy to secure the minerals, materials and equipment required by all of these industries.

Taken separately, these targets resemble the familiar catalogue of technologies that major powers hope to master before their rivals. But SEOUL also wants to manufacture the components, materials and machines required to deploy them.

A “post-AI” strategy built on AI and semiconductors

The government presents the seven SEED programs as the engines of a new growth cycle extending beyond semiconductors and artificial intelligence. That does not mean the country is moving away from its current industries. SEOUL is already preparing for what comes after AI.

The seven programs are designed to redeploy the capital, engineers and industrial capabilities accumulated in chips, batteries, telecommunications, shipbuilding, chemicals and large-scale energy equipment.

It is a method SOUTH KOREA has already tested throughout its industrial development. The country was not necessarily the first to invent the technologies that later became sources of national strength. It often began by manufacturing them, improving production processes, increasing volumes, lowering costs and then moving upstream toward the most strategic components and intellectual property.

Consumer electronics led to advanced memory chips. Automotive assembly preceded the development of proprietary platforms and powertrains. Early nuclear licensing agreements prepared the ground for Korean-designed reactors and international contracts. Battery manufacturing expanded into cathodes, anodes, electrolytes and recycling.

That progression relies on a combination that is difficult to reproduce: conglomerates capable of committing billions over a decade, a state that organizes research and infrastructure, suppliers accustomed to the demands of mass production, and an economy resolutely oriented toward exports.

The SEED program is now attempting to apply that organization to markets that have not yet stabilized.

In SMRs, SOUTH KOREA can win without imposing its own reactor

Small modular reactors are probably the bet closest to the country’s existing industrial capabilities. SOUTH KOREA already operates more than 26 GW of nuclear capacity. It has engineering groups, component manufacturers and an operator, KOREA HYDRO & NUCLEAR POWER, capable of managing international projects.

DOOSAN ENERBILITY is already embedded in several foreign supply chains. In August, the group was selected by TERRAPOWER to manufacture critical components for the Natrium reactor planned in Wyoming, including the reactor vessel and several internal structures. SK and HD HYUNDAI have also invested in TERRAPOWER and are seeking roles in equipment supply, construction and operations for future projects.

That presence allows SOUTH KOREA to begin building an industry before its own SMR has even been approved.

The government wants to begin detailed design work on a light-water SMR in 2027, establish by 2030 a regulatory framework capable of assessing several different architectures, and commercialize the first model in 2035. Reactors relying on alternative coolant technologies would meanwhile be developed through project companies bringing together the state and private investors from the outset.

The timetable is ambitious. Certifying a reactor does not guarantee that it can be built competitively or secure international orders. But the Korean strategy rests on two bets: developing its own SMR while supplying equipment for reactors designed elsewhere.

American and European developers will need reactor vessels, generators, structural components, control systems and qualified suppliers. SOUTH KOREA already possesses much of that industrial base.

It could therefore capture a significant share of the SMR market without having designed the reactor that ultimately becomes dominant.

The “K-Quantum Foundry” reveals SOUTH KOREA’s real ambition

The same logic becomes even clearer in quantum computing.

SOUTH KOREA remains well behind the leading quantum processor powers. In 2024, the KOREA RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND SCIENCE said it had demonstrated a domestic 20-qubit system and was targeting 50 qubits by 2026. At the same time, the institute acknowledged that around 95% of the components used by the Korean ecosystem were imported.

Moving to a domestic 100-qubit QPU as early as 2029 would therefore represent a significant step. The program targets a processor described as “error-correction capable,” which does not necessarily mean a machine containing 100 fully error-corrected logical qubits.

The government’s objective is to create a “K-Quantum Foundry” capable of manufacturing quantum chips at scale and to claim the world’s leading position in the field by 2035.

The ambition directly transposes the semiconductor model. SAMSUNG, SK HYNIX and their suppliers already master lithography, material deposition, defect metrology, packaging, controlled environments and the organization of extraordinarily complex factories.

None of these capabilities guarantees the ability to manufacture a good qubit. But they become essential once a quantum architecture has to leave the laboratory.

SOUTH KOREA could therefore fail to design the world’s best quantum computer while still manufacturing chips for several foreign designers.

The challenge for the Korean program is to industrialize faster than others without freezing too early what still remains to be invented.

From solar to fusion, equipment could come before the market

The same strategy runs through the energy programs.

In tandem solar, HANWHA QCELLS already has a technological foundation. In 2024, the company achieved a certified efficiency of 28.6% on an industrial-scale perovskite-silicon cell using processes it described as compatible with future mass production. The SEED program aims to exceed 35% and accelerate commercialization.

The challenge will not simply be to establish another efficiency record, but to preserve that performance at module level while ensuring stability over several decades. SOUTH KOREA will also need to organize production and compete with the pricing power of the Chinese industry.

The gap is larger in offshore wind. DOOSAN currently has a certified 8 MW turbine, while the roadmap targets machines above 20 MW. SOUTH KOREA nevertheless possesses substantial expertise in floating structures, steel, cables, electrical systems and maritime operations.

Its shipyards could capture a significant share of the value without ever becoming the world’s leading turbine manufacturers.

Fusion takes this strategy to another level.

The government wants to begin construction in 2035 of an innovative reactor designed in SOUTH KOREA, generate electricity before the end of the decade and prepare for commercial operation during the 2040s.

That timetable significantly accelerates the previous K-DEMO roadmap, which envisaged construction around 2037, followed by a lengthy experimental phase before achieving net electricity generation from 2050.

Commercial operation in the 2040s remains closer to a political target than an industrial forecast. SOUTH KOREA, however, does not need to wait for its first kilowatt-hour to build a fusion industry.

KSTAR already serves as a training ground for industrial groups that may eventually manufacture the large vessels, thermal equipment, nuclear components, magnets, control systems and advanced materials required by future reactors.

In this new gold rush, the picks and shovels will take the form of superconducting magnets and nuclear components. SOUTH KOREA can begin selling them long before it sells fusion-generated electricity.

From pharmaceutical factory to autonomous laboratory

In biotechnology, SOUTH KOREA is seeking to reverse the path followed by the traditional pharmaceutical industry.

The country has already become a global manufacturing platform. Following the acquisition of a GSK site in MARYLAND, SAMSUNG BIOLOGICS says it now has 845,000 liters of global biologics manufacturing capacity.

The SEED program now wants to move upstream into discovery.

By 2030, it calls for specialized AI models, laboratories in which robots and software automatically conduct experiments, and biofoundries capable of designing and producing organisms. Project companies are also expected to support gene and cell therapies.

The government is additionally targeting the commercialization of a brain-computer-interface product by 2035, without specifying what form it will take.

That could mean anything from a non-invasive communication-assistance device to a rehabilitation system or a neural implant.

While SOUTH KOREA has strong prospects of strengthening its position in biomanufacturing, advanced therapies and laboratory automation, its ability to become a global leader in BCIs is far less established.

The seventh SEED provides the materials for the other six

Critical minerals may appear last in the government’s presentation, but they could be the first condition for the strategy’s success.

SOUTH KOREA manufactures batteries, semiconductors, electronic equipment and advanced materials, but imports most of its mineral resources. A previous strategy estimated that the country depended on a small number of supplier countries for roughly 80% of some minerals and aimed to bring that figure down to 50% by 2030.

The new roadmap aims to raise the recycling rate of ten strategic minerals to 20%, increase the number of stockpiled products from 24 to 29, and extend some reserves to as much as 365 days. A dedicated base is due to open in SAEMANGEUM in 2028.

The government has also announced 10 trillion won, around €6.2 billion, of R&D spending over five years for materials, components and equipment.

The state wants to occupy the space between the laboratory and the factory

The originality of the program lies not only in the technologies selected, but also in the way the government proposes to develop them.

It wants to establish public-private project companies from the earliest stages of some programs. These structures could bring together laboratories, industrial groups, investors and future operators before the underlying technologies have fully stabilized.

The government also plans to build infrastructure alongside the products themselves: demonstration equipment for SMRs, fusion-testing facilities in NAJU, a quantum foundry, a pilot satellite network, autonomous biological laboratories, biofoundries and electrolysis demonstrators.

This simultaneity is intended to avoid a common weakness of deeptech policies.

A laboratory receives funding, achieves a remarkable result, publishes several papers and then discovers that nobody has planned the factory, the certification process, the first customer or the hundreds of millions required for the next stage.

SEOUL wants to fill that gap before the prototype falls into it.

The strategy also includes directing more funding toward universities themselves, reorganizing public research institutes around long-term national missions and creating an interministerial task force responsible for tracking projects and removing regulatory obstacles.

The system is therefore not merely funding research. It is attempting to organize the path from scientific experiment to industrial contract.

SOUTH KOREA’s greatest strength could also become its weakness

This method works particularly well when a technology begins to stabilize and competition shifts toward quality, yield, cost and volume.

It becomes riskier when nobody yet knows which architecture will win.

Semiconductors, batteries and ships allowed SOUTH KOREA to concentrate enormous investments around trajectories that gradually became established. Quantum computing, fusion, BCIs and some SMR technologies remain divided between multiple incompatible approaches.

Korean industrial culture favors large programs, factories, scale and groups with substantial balance sheets. Breakthrough technologies, however, sometimes advance through small teams, rapid platform changes and the abandonment of decisions made only a few years earlier.

The role of startups will therefore be decisive.

They can give the program several technological options, attract researchers and explore architectures that large groups would consider too uncertain. But they could also find themselves reduced to subcontractors for project companies controlled by incumbent industrial players.

The Korean strategy will be more resilient if it keeps several paths open for long enough.

The seven bets do not all need to succeed

The overall success of the program does not depend on every deadline being met.

It could instead come from securing a handful of sufficiently strong positions: SMR components, critical materials, tandem solar, biomanufacturing, quantum equipment or satellite systems.

The projects closest to SOUTH KOREA’s existing capabilities are intended to generate revenues and build capacity. The most uncertain ones effectively buy the country an option on markets that may only emerge after 2035.

The dominant technological power will not necessarily be the one that achieves the first breakthroughs, but the one that knows how to turn them into industries.

That is precisely the position SOUTH KOREA is now seeking to occupy.