As global competition for artificial intelligence (AI) supremacy intensifies, experts have proposed that South Korea, the United States, and Japan establish a trilateral cooperation framework to secure leadership in technology and infrastructure.
Kwon Seok-joon, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, said at the "6th Korea-U.S. Industrial Cooperation Conference" co-hosted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Korea-U.S. Association on Wednesday: "AI transformation is shifting from a simple performance competition to a contest over cost-to-performance and power-to-performance ratios, and toward developing inference model engines that can be more effectively applied in real-world settings." He added, "Korea, the U.S., and Japan must form a joint R&D platform and standards council to respond."
Kwon pointed to the "memory bottleneck" as a hurdle blocking the global spread of AI, warning that Korea, a memory manufacturing powerhouse, could also face growing difficulties on the cost front. "Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS) cannot resolve this bottleneck alone," he said. "Beyond sharing memory supply roadmaps with U.S. hyperscalers, the two governments must coordinate policies to untangle technical complexities."
He also emphasized significant room for trilateral cooperation on AI data center (DC) capabilities, which are directly tied to AI competitiveness. "Power generation to produce large amounts of electricity is important, but so are the transmission and distribution systems needed to efficiently deliver that power to AI data centers," he said. "Korea, the U.S., and Japan can set a single standard for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission, transformers, and power semiconductors, and jointly grow the market."
Another argument raised was that to survive the restructuring of global advanced supply chains driven by U.S.-China rivalry, Korea must exercise "strategic autonomy" by simultaneously competing and cooperating with neighboring countries. Sung Yun-mo, former Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, said, "Korea must actively participate in the U.S.-led supply chain restructuring, expand cooperation in advanced technology and manufacturing, and reduce dependence on China." He added, "In the case of China, competition has grown greater than production cooperation, so a new approach is needed."
Sung said a joint response framework should be built so that Korea's hardware capabilities and Japan's material resources can generate synergy within the U.S.-centered AI supply chain. He also stressed the need for cooperation in the energy sector. "Korea and Japan face significant energy supply instability, making cooperation with the U.S., which has high energy autonomy, essential," he said. "We need to prioritize supply cooperation with the U.S., the world's top producer of crude oil and natural gas, and then move on to broader cooperation in the energy industry."
