Samsung to invest 140 trillion won to turn Asan vineyard into world's largest display complex

"Thirty-some years ago, this land in Asan was nothing but vast vineyards. Today it is home to the world's largest display complex. Chungcheong, at the heart of the nation, will grow even further as a global hub for IT materials and components."

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong made the remarks Wednesday at a national report on the Chungcheong region's advanced industry development vision, held at Samsung Display's Asan Campus 2 in South Chungcheong Province.

Samsung said it plans to invest 140 trillion won ($90.1 billion) to develop the Chungcheong region into a center for materials and components.

Samsung Display will build a cutting-edge OLED cluster, Samsung Electro-Mechanics will invest in package substrates for AI servers, and Samsung SDI will establish a battery mother line.

Samsung Display President Lee Cheong said the company had expanded the display market in earnest by developing Asan Complex 1, and has maintained its position as the world's No. 1 display maker by leading innovation from LCD to OLED.

He added that the display industry, which grew more than tenfold over the past 20 years on the back of internet and mobile technology, is expected to grow at least tenfold again over the next decade as smart glasses and various edge devices emerge in the AI era.

Samsung Display plans to complete a future display cluster with an investment of 67 trillion won. The company currently operates Asan Complex 1, spanning 770,000 pyeong (1 pyeong equals 3.3 square meters), and will develop a new Asan Complex 2 covering 630,000 pyeong. The new complex will produce displays for smartphones and IT devices, as well as for XR (extended reality) and automotive applications, and for humanoid robots and wearables.

Samsung Display began building Asan Campus 1 in the late 1990s and has since used both campuses as key production bases for small-, medium- and large-sized OLED panels. Since 2023, the company has invested 4 trillion won to build the world's first 8.6th-generation IT line, aiming to expand OLED adoption into laptop panels. That line began mass-production operations this month.

Before the event, Chairman Lee introduced President Lee Jae Myung to the displays that will be produced at Asan Complex 2. The president tried out automotive displays and XR smart glasses firsthand.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics will invest 8 trillion won to expand package substrate facilities at its Sejong plant, responding to a supply shortage driven by surging AI data center investment from global Big Tech companies. The investment will be accompanied by research and development spending on key component technologies and talent development.

Lee said the company would invest in AI server substrate facilities and R&D to make Sejong a global manufacturing hub for high-performance package substrates.

Demand in the AI server substrate market has become so intense that customers are offering upfront payments to secure factory capacity. AI server substrates connect high-performance chips — including GPUs (graphics processing units) and HBM (high-bandwidth memory) — onto a single platform, and their importance is growing as stable, high-speed data transfer becomes critical.

Earnings growth in the segment has been steep. Industry officials say substrate prices for AI data centers are incomparably higher than those for legacy PC and smartphone applications. With production capacity now more critical than ever, the investment is aimed at building long-term competitiveness in the AI server substrate market.

Samsung SDI will invest 9 trillion won to secure next-generation battery technology. The company established a mother line at its Cheonan plant in 2018 to conduct trial production before applying new products to mass-production lines, allowing it to verify manufacturability and validate process and equipment technologies in advance.

Lee said Samsung SDI would invest in the Cheonan mother line to verify next-generation battery technologies and develop the capabilities needed to compete on the global stage.