"Korea must evolve from a chip exporter to an AI token exporter. That is the most realistic path toward becoming one of the world's top three AI nations," James (Young-sang) Ryu, president of the SK AI Committee, said Thursday during an AI forum hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea (AMCHAM).
The remarks offered SK Group's clearest articulation yet of its long-term AI strategy, complementing Chairman Chey Tae-won's vision of building 15 gigawatts of AI factory capacity nationwide over the coming decade.
"A token is not cryptocurrency. It is the smallest unit AI uses to understand the world and generate answers," Ryu said.
"AI does not read language as humans do. It breaks everything into tiny tokens and builds answers one token at a time, like Lego blocks. Every one of those blocks consumes electricity and computing power. A token is therefore not merely data — it is a manufactured product."
Echoing Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang's description of tokens as revenue-generating units, Ryu argued that artificial intelligence should no longer be viewed primarily as software.
"AI is no longer a software industry. It is a manufacturing industry that produces tokens," he said. "In the AI era, tokens are becoming what oil was to the industrial age."
Unlike oil, however, tokens are manufactured rather than extracted. "Oil comes out of the ground. Tokens come out of factories," he said.
"South Korea could never become an oil-producing nation because it lacks natural resources. But we became a semiconductor powerhouse because we know how to manufacture. In the same way, Korea can become a global producer of AI tokens."
Ryu said demand for AI tokens is entering an explosive growth phase as AI agents, autonomous systems and physical AI such as humanoid robots begin operating around the clock.
Citing industry estimates, he said Google's monthly token processing expanded from 9.7 trillion in 2024 to 3,200 trillion in 2026, while Goldman Sachs projects global token consumption will increase 24-fold by 2030.
"Humans eventually stop working. AI agents and robots never sleep," he said.
Although the cost of generating each token continues to fall, overall demand will keep accelerating because lower prices stimulate more AI usage.
"The price per token may decline, but cheaper tokens simply create more demand. The market becomes larger."
"The competition is no longer about building data centers. It is about who can build the most efficient token factories."
His remarks come as South Korea has emerged as one of the world's most aggressive investors in AI infrastructure, buoyed by record semiconductor earnings. Korea became only the fourth country to surpass $100 billion in monthly exports in June, with semiconductors alone accounting for $44.82 billion, nearly half the total. The government now estimates annual exports could exceed $1 trillion if the current pace is maintained.
The semiconductor windfall has accelerated investment in AI infrastructure. This week, Samsung Group and SK Group unveiled a combined 1,065 trillion won ($768 billion) in new investments across the Honam and Chungcheong regions, spanning semiconductor fabrication plants, AI data centers, displays, batteries and energy infrastructure.
The investment drive forms part of the government's broader AI industrial strategy.
Ryu outlined a five-layer AI value chain consisting of energy, chips, AI infrastructure, foundation models and applications. Electricity and semiconductors form the supply chain, AI factories manufacture the tokens, while AI models and applications distribute the finished digital products.
Ryu argued that Korea currently dominates only part of that value chain.
The country supplies around 80 percent of the world's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI servers but lacks sufficient AI factories to capture the higher-value computing output.
"We are selling the world's best memory chips while letting other countries build the token factories," he said.
"In effect, we export components but import the finished AI product."
Without large-scale domestic AI infrastructure, he warned, Korea risks becoming an importer of AI computing services despite manufacturing many of the world's most critical AI components.
"The question is whether Korea becomes a token exporter or a token importer."
Ryu said Korea must pursue five priorities to become a global AI token exporter: building gigawatt-scale AI factories, developing sovereign Korean foundation models, attracting global AI companies to operate AI factories in Korea, expanding domestic AI demand across healthcare, education, manufacturing and defense, and strengthening enabling technologies including power systems, cooling, HBM, CXL memory and advanced semiconductor packaging.
"This is not something one company can accomplish alone," he said.
"Government, industry and our global allies must build this ecosystem together."
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