00:02You're listening to AI PRISM from Seoul Economic Daily.
00:06Korea's semiconductor giants just had their worst week since the 2008 financial crisis.
00:13China's CXMT says its quarterly revenue will jump sevenfold, and it's rattling the entire sector.
00:19The yuan just touched a two-year low against the dollar.
00:23Samsung is now turning to rival TSMC for a critical piece of its AI chip supply chain.
00:30And in Washington, a new shipbuilding push could open a fresh channel for Korean industry.
00:35It's Monday, October 19th.
00:38Here's why global investors are paying attention to Korea today.
00:41Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix stock fell sharply last week after China's CXMT claimed progress on a next-generation DRAM
00:51structure called 4F-squared.
00:54Tesla's Elon Musk, along with reports that Apple is testing CXMT chips, added to fears that Korea's memory dominance is
01:02under threat.
01:03The sell-off came alongside a broader risk-off mood as U.S. inflation data revived expectations of further rate
01:10hikes.
01:11Here's what the numbers show.
01:13Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell 17.75% and 24.33% from October 12th to 16th, their steepest
01:24weekly drop since October 2008.
01:26Foreign investors net sold 11.24 trillion won, or about $8.4 billion, on the KOSPI that week, up 74
01:36% from the prior week's 6.45 trillion won, or about $4.8 billion.
01:43CXMT guided third-quarter revenue to 114.7 to 119.7 billion yuan, or roughly 22.9 to 23.9
01:55trillion won, about $17.1 to $17.8 billion, up 589 to 619% year-on-year on AI-driven
02:07DRAM demand.
02:08CXMT's chairman also proposed a share buyback of 1 to 2 billion yuan, well above the sector's typical 200 to
02:16800 million yuan range.
02:18NVIDIA asked Samsung to build the base die for its custom NVHBM chip using TSMC's 3nm process instead of Samsung's
02:28own foundry,
02:29where industry sources put TSMC's yield above 90% against roughly 60% for Samsung's competing 2nm line.
02:38Global HBM demand is projected to rise 91% next year to about 61.5 billion gigabits, according to UBS,
02:48while new supply reaches only 54.6 billion gigabits.
02:52The yuan averaged $1,342.6 per dollar this month, its weakest level in roughly two years.
03:00The U.S. unveiled a $1.85 billion budget request to study Allied shipyards, including Korea's, for building American naval
03:09vessels,
03:09a policy still blocked by a U.S. House defense bill restricting foreign-built warships.
03:15So what does this mean for global investors watching Korea?
03:19Earlier, we said the yuan just touched a two-year low.
03:22Here's what that actually means for you.
03:25Hedging costs into Korean equities just got cheaper, even as the underlying sector risk gets harder to read.
03:32Watch whether foreign outflows reverse before the Bank of Korea's October 22nd rate decision.
03:38A hold would support the yuan, but do little to calm chip sector nerves.
03:43Watch the base die supply shift from Samsung's own foundry to TSMC,
03:49and watch whether the U.S. House bill blocking foreign-built warships softens.
03:54Both could reset how global investors weight Korea's semiconductor and shipbuilding exposure.
04:00That's today's AI Prism, Global Investors.
04:03This episode was produced with AI assistance based on Seoul Economic Daily reporting
04:09and reviewed by a human editor.
04:11AI Prism is a Juan Ifra award-winning series.
04:15We'll be back tomorrow.
04:16You've been listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
04:19Thank you.
