Powering the Future: South Korea, Semiconductors, & Geopolitics of Tech

The semiconductor industry has emerged as a defining arena of global competition, shaping economic security, supply chain resilience, and geopolitical strategy. South Korea—home to some of the world’s most advanced chipmakers—has established itself foremost as a manufacturing powerhouse, commanding a dominant position in memory chips and advanced fabrication. This central role places Seoul at the heart of the global race, as it balances industrial strength with the pressures of great power rivalry and shifting supply chains.

As semiconductors move from being the invisible backbone of consumer electronics to a core element of national security and industrial policy, South Korea’s experience offers critical lessons on how governments can strengthen innovation, safeguard competitiveness, and navigate the politics of technological change. What strategies can democracies adopt to secure supply chains without fueling fragmentation? How should countries balance industrial policy with global cooperation? And what unique role can middle powers like South Korea play—leveraging their manufacturing capacity and technological expertise—in shaping the future of technological governance?

Young-sun Park is a distinguished South Korean policymaker, journalist, and legislator. She served as Minister of SMEs and Startups from 2019 to 2021, spearheading digital transformation initiatives for small businesses. Over her four terms in the National Assembly, she broke new ground as the first female Floor Leader and Chair of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, while also leading prosecutorial reform and driving reforms in budget, planning, and media. Before entering politics, she gained national recognition as an investigative anchor at Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). Most recently, Park was a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center, and she continues to serve as a Non-Resident Fellow at CSIS and as a Board Member of the World Economic Forum’s Advanced Manufacturing and Production initiative. She holds degrees from Kyung Hee University and Sogang University.

Benjamin L. Schmitt is a Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds a joint academic appointment between the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He is also a Senior Fellow at Perry World House, Penn’s home for global policy engagement.

At Penn, Schmitt focuses on the project development and field deployment of the Simons Observatory, a new set of experimental cosmology telescopes and energy support infrastructure under construction at a high-altitude site in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. In his joint role at Penn, he also pursues research and teaching with the Kleinman Center related to European energy security, critical infrastructure protection, export controls policies, and modern sanctions regimes. At Perry World House, Dr. Schmitt focuses on national security analysis focused on the transatlantic community and the Indo-Pacific, as well as emerging space security challenges.

Schmitt is also an affiliate of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Ukrainian Research Institute, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is co-founder of the Duke Space Diplomacy Lab, where he is also a fellow of Duke’s Rethinking Diplomacy Program. Schmitt is also a senior fellow for Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Schmitt received both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in experimental physics from the University of Pennsylvania.

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