South Korea’s cash-rich winners of AI boom go on US buying spree

South Korean companies flush with cash from the AI boom are making their biggest US investment push in years as they race to build up capabilities in the most advanced technology and avoid Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Foreign direct investment executed by South Korean groups in the US during the first quarter more than doubled year on year to $10.2bn, the highest in nearly five years, according to the finance ministry in Seoul. It rose nearly 15 per cent to $25.7bn for the whole of 2025.

The threat of higher American tariffs had pushed cash-rich South Korean exporters to expand production there, while the retreat of Chinese buyers amid an intensifying US-China rivalry had created a rare opening to snap up attractive assets in cutting-edge tech, said bankers.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, two of the biggest winners from the AI infrastructure build-out, have been particularly acquisitive.

The chipmakers have seen their stock value more than triple in the past year and are expected to post combined record operating profits of about Won600tn ($400bn) this year. They have used the firepower to make strategic investments in US companies across the AI supply chain.

Samsung joined a $100mn funding round for AI data-centre cooling specialist ZutaCore last month and participated in a $750mn financing for AI chipmaker Groq last year. Outside the US, Samsung is in talks to invest in French AI start-up Mistral, the FT reported this week.

SK Hynix said in January it would put $10bn into “innovative companies in the US” and partner with them. It backed US start-up Avicena in a $120mn funding round last year, betting on optical interconnect technology designed to improve the energy efficiency of AI systems.

“AI is fundamentally changing M&A dealmaking around the world,” said Sushil Bathija, head of mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs for Asia ex-Japan.

“The US has been the epicentre of that innovation and Korea, from an Asian perspective, is at the centre of that. The…