3,000% bonuses but a growing wealth divide: South Korea grapples with its AI chip boom

When South Korea’s most high-profile divorce case returned to court last month, the lawyers were arguing not just about the breakdown of a relationship, but also the exact date at which to value shares in one specific company.

The judges’ decision in Seoul could change the value of business tycoon Chey Tae-won’s assets by billions of dollars. The shares were in the holding company behind SK Hynix, the manufacturer of chips powering AI systems around the world.

South Korea is one of the world’s biggest makers of these high-value chips and the country is seeing an unprecedented wealth boom from their rise. From workers in tech firms collecting six-figure bonuses, to ordinary people seeing massive investment returns – all of it driving a surge in luxury spending.

But only a small slice of the population is cashing in, sparking a wider debate about who should have a share in the profits of the country’s most valuable industry. As South Korea grapples with widening inequality, calls are growing for some of the earnings – or the taxes they generate – to be spread more widely.

The huge wealth surge has been driven by two companies – Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The pair dominate the global supply of high-bandwidth memory, the specialised chips that AI systems need to run. Analysts project their combined operating profits could rise almost sevenfold this year.

Their success has pushed South Korea’s main stock index – the Kospi – to record highs.

The chipmakers have begun sharing those record profits with their staff on a scale the country has never seen. At Samsung, a memory-chip worker on a base salary of 80m won ($51,300) could receive bonuses close to 600m won ($384,900) this year, most of it in stock. That is roughly 17 times the average annual salary at a small South Korean firm.

SK Hynix paid its workers a bonus of nearly 3,000% of their monthly salary earlier this year. Based on forecast profits, next year’s payout is projected to be several times larger.

The signs of this flourishing wealth are dotted across the country. In satellite cities built around the chip factories south of Seoul luxury sales are surging.

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In the first weeks of May, jewellery sales at one department store jumped 146%, while watch sales rose 85%. In Icheon, where SK Hynix has its main campus, imported car registrations surged 108% in February. Apartment prices near semiconductor company bus routes are rising at four times the wider Seoul average.

Not everyone benefiting from the AI boom works in a chip factory.

After watching financial videos online a few years ago, Brian Lee, a retiree in Seoul bought small amounts of SK Hynix and Samsung shares – and then forgot about them. His SK Hynix return is now 1,264%.

“This is the result of my hard work, plus luck,” he says. “I feel guilty, and at the same time, even though I have yet to cash it out, I tend to spend more,” he said, adding he has started looking at collector watches.

Who owns the profits?

The explosion in wealth has driven questions about who is entitled to a share in the profits – and how to spread the wealth more evenly across society.

“Over the years, the semiconductor industry benefited enormously from government support,” says Kim Yong-jin, professor of business administration at Sogang University in Seoul, pointing to decades of state investment in research and industrial policy. “So they have to think about society itself.”

The president’s chief policy adviser was drawn into the argument in May, floating what he called a “citizen dividend”, arguing the wealth rested on foundations built by all Koreans over half a century.

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Though some critics saw it as a plan to hand out cash or seize company profits outright, he later framed it more narrowly as a way to channel surplus tax revenues back to the public through structured investment.

Opposition politicians called his comments akin to communism and the presidential office distanced itself from the plan.

The question of shared gains is not only political. Samsung’s largest union nearly brought production to a halt in May, demanding a guaranteed share of profits, before a last-minute deal averted a strike. But the deal upset some in the company, as those in the phone and appliance division were set to receive only a fraction of what those working in chip making did.

South Korea has long grappled with inequality. It has one of the highest rates of elderly poverty in the developed world, while rising housing and living costs have deepened pressure on many households.

More Koreans feel their living standards have worsened than improved, despite the wealth piling up elsewhere. Manufacturing employment has fallen year on year for nearly two years. Nearly a million small businesses closed in 2025, with many owners left carrying huge debts. The income gap between the richest and poorest households hit a six-year high.

“Everyone is talking about the boom, but most Koreans can’t feel it,” says Kyusuk Cho, a graduate student in information studies. “Life is getting more expensive and jobs are harder to find.”

Strip out the two chipmakers – who make up more than 50% of the Kospi index – and the rest of the economy is barely moving.

Kim Yong-jin says the gains should be shared between those who invested, those who worked, and the society that made it possible, in a way that strengthens the country over the long run, but that South Korea has yet to build a framework for how.

“We need a consensus on how to share these profits,” he says. “That is the most important part.”

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