South Korea's Lee on Monday instructed officials to rapidly advance last week's
major chip and AI projects, warning that delays in permitting, land acquisition
or securing power and water could undermine the country's push to lead advanced
industries. He ordered a shift from sequential to parallel processing of
approvals, demanded shorter environmental assessments and other permit
timelines, and required pre-provisioning of electricity and water
infrastructure, saying power will be especially critical for chip plants. Lee
cited the Yongin industrial park—which took six years from site confirmation to
groundbreaking—as a relative speed benchmark and told officials to resolve
firms' concerns about baseload supply despite expanding renewable capacity.
