South Korea and Italy sign AI and chip cooperation memorandums

This set of memorandums shows how AI and chips are now inseparable in industrial diplomacy. South Korea brings world-class memory and logic manufacturing; Italy brings an EU foothold, automotive and industrial customers, and political weight inside Europe’s evolving AI and semiconductor policy regimes. By explicitly bundling AI, semiconductors, aerospace and critical minerals, the deal reflects a recognition that compute supply chains and model development are strategic assets, not just commercial products. ([world.kbs.co.kr](https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?Seq_Code=198918&lang=e))

While no specific projects were named, frameworks like this matter because they pre-clear the political path for joint R&D centers, cross-border fab investments, and preferential access to talent and subsidies. For frontier labs and model deployers, it suggests that the next decade of AI will be built atop a patchwork of politically negotiated compute zones—where access to advanced nodes, export-controlled chips, and critical raw materials depends on which side of these partnerships you sit. That, in turn, could fragment where and how AGI-class training runs are executed, with alliances like Korea–Italy shaping not just supply but also safety and governance norms.