"Global Semiconductor Market Sees Positive Momentum"

On June 27, Korea Investment & Securities projected that the positive momentum in the global semiconductor market?highlighted by Nvidia's recent record-high stock price?will continue in the mid- to long-term, even if short-term negative factors emerge. This outlook is attributed to the expansion of the market, driven by projects such as the U.S. Stargate Project and the establishment of sovereign AI infrastructure in various countries around the world.

Earlier this year, U.S. President Trump announced the 'Stargate Project,' a domestic AI infrastructure initiative in the United States involving SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle, with a total investment of approximately 680 trillion won (500 billion dollars). In connection with this, on June 24, Foxconn, a key supplier in the AI server ODM market, decided to invest a total of 680 billion won in its U.S. and Indian subsidiaries to launch a modular data center and server assembly business. In the United States, this will be carried out as a joint venture with SoftBank. In this way, the previously shrouded Stargate Project is gradually coming into clearer focus.

Recently, sovereign AI (digital sovereignty AI) projects have been announced almost daily in countries around the world. In May 2025, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, unveiled a massive project in Saudi Arabia to build an AI supercomputer in the Middle East equipped with as many as 18,000 GB300 chips. This project is being carried out in partnership with Humane, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). The demand for AI chips is thus expanding beyond the corporate level to large-scale, state-led projects.

In June 2025, at an event in Paris, Nvidia announced plans to build a cloud platform with French AI startup Mistral, based on 18,000 Blackwell chips, and to establish the world’s first industrial AI cloud data center in Germany. This facility, referred to as an AI factory, will be powered by 10,000 Blackwell chips and will provide dedicated AI computing infrastructure for manufacturers.

Meanwhile, on June 23, Oracle and AMD announced plans to build a 'Zetascale AI Cluster' by installing up to 130,000 units of AMD’s latest AI accelerator, the Instinct MI355X, in 'Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).' This represents a very powerful alliance challenging Nvidia’s dominance, and signals a strategic intent by both companies to reshape the AI market, going beyond the simple introduction of new products. Such developments are reinforcing confidence in the mid- to long-term investment demand for AI hardware in the market.

However, up to now, TSMC has communicated that AI semiconductor supply and demand will reach equilibrium next year. As a result, some in the market have issued conservative forecasts for TSMC’s performance next year, citing reasons such as H20 regulations, lack of demand from China, and improvements in process yield. Regarding this, Moon Seunghwan, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities, stated, "Given the current market trends, short-term negative factors are unlikely to significantly affect the upward momentum in stock prices," adding, "There has been a steady stream of news about the expansion of the AI hardware market, and since the stock prices of global semiconductor companies are now linked to mid- to long-term earnings visibility beyond 2027, we maintain a positive outlook on global semiconductor companies."