Industry minister calls for active profit reinvestment in AI sector

Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan on Friday called for active reinvestment of profits earned by the booming semiconductor industry in a bid to make Korea a global power in the artificial intelligence (AI) era. Kim made the remarks in a social media post amid ongoing discussions in Korea about the best way to share or use windfall profits of major semiconductor companies. The debate has brewed since Samsung Electronics, Korea's largest conglomerate and the world's biggest memory chip maker, was recently embroiled in a labor-management conflict over performance-based bonuses amid forecasts that the company's operating profit could reach 300 trillion ($199.5 billion) this year on the back of the global AI boom. Following the monthslong conflict, the labor and management reached a wage agreement last week, under which Samsung decided to allocate a special semiconductor performance bonus equivalent to 10.5 percent of business performance earnings, without a cap. "The world has entered a race against time to secure leadership in the AI sector. In key AI industries, including semiconductors, an a