SK Chairman Calls for Korea-Japan Joint AI Task Force on Chips

SK Group's chairman has proposed a joint Korea-Japan artificial intelligence task force dedicated to semiconductor security, according to a report by the Chosun Ilbo. The proposal places one of South Korea's largest conglomerates behind a formal government-and-industry mechanism that would tie the two countries' chip sectors together.

The chairman of SK Group — the parent of SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory maker and a principal supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to AI accelerator vendors — put the idea forward as a way to pool the two countries' complementary strengths in advanced semiconductors. The Chosun Ilbo report identifies the task force as a joint body covering AI and semiconductor security, rather than a purely commercial alliance.

Why does a Korean conglomerate want a task force with Japan?

The logic rests on complementarity. South Korea dominates memory: SK Hynix leads in HBM, the stacked DRAM products that sit alongside Nvidia-class AI processors. Japan holds critical positions upstream in the materials and equipment layers of the same supply chain — silicon wafers, photoresists and deposition tools — where Japanese suppliers hold large global shares.

A joint task force would give both governments and companies a standing channel to coordinate on export controls, supply continuity and AI-related chip demand. The proposal arrives as Washington's controls on China-bound advanced chips and equipment force US allies in Northeast Asia to align their own policy responses.

For SK, the mechanism could secure materials and equipment access in a crisis. For Japanese suppliers, it offers a formal link to the largest source of AI memory demand. The chairmanship-level framing signals that SK treats supply-chain security as a boardroom issue, not a procurement detail.

In plain terms: the proposal tries to convert two national chip industries into one coordinated regional bloc.

What does the task force actually cover?

According to the Chosun Ilbo report, the proposal centers on three linked areas:

• Artificial intelligence: coordination on AI chip demand, standards and related technology policy.
• Semiconductor security: joint attention to supply continuity, export-control responses and critical inputs.
• Korea-Japan cooperation: a standing bilateral body rather than one-off deals between individual firms.

The report does not specify a launch date, staffing level or budget for the proposed body, and no Japanese government or corporate response appears in the source material. Readers should treat the task force as a proposal at chairman level, not an agreed institution.

The takeaway: this is an opening position from SK's leadership, and its fate depends on whether Tokyo and Seoul choose to institutionalize chip cooperation.

What comes next?

The proposal now sits with policymakers in both capitals. Japan and Korea have deepened semiconductor cooperation in recent years, and an AI-focused task force would extend that trend from materials and equipment into the AI layer of the stack.

If governments pick it up, expect the first test in how the body handles export-control alignment and HBM-related supply questions; if they do not, the proposal will stand as a marker of how far Korean industry is willing to reach across the Sea of Japan for chip security.