Samsung Electronics’ Onyang campus in Asan gets a new advanced packaging fab of about 6 trillion won, followed in sequence by about 40 trillion won of advanced equipment, President Lee Jae-myung said on 12 November, as Seoul Economic Daily reported. Speaking at the groundbreaking, he said the campus will become a key hub for advanced HBM packaging.
At the day’s base rate of 1,336.7 won per dollar, the equipment is about $29.9 billion, by our arithmetic. That is about 47% of the roughly 84.4 trillion won Samsung expects to spend on capital expenditure in all of 2026, according to its third-quarter release.
Business Pill · The Memory Wall
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on why memory bandwidth, not chip speed, limits AI. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Samsung or Onyang.
The key insight: The money at Onyang is mostly machines, not buildings: about 40 trillion won of equipment against a 6 trillion won fab, roughly 6.7 to 1 by our arithmetic. That equipment equals about 47% of Samsung’s 2026 capital expenditure guidance, at a site Lee called a key hub for advanced HBM packaging.
Lee spoke at the groundbreaking of the Chungcheong mega-project, where three investment projects broke ground: an advanced semiconductor packaging fab and an advanced display line in Asan, and a plant for high-performance AI server substrates in Sejong. He said companies and the government pledged the investment plan in July, and that the promise was becoming reality just four months later.
The fab plus the follow-on equipment comes to 46 trillion won, Aju Business Daily reported, or about $34.4 billion at the same rate, by our arithmetic. Samsung chairman Lee Jae-yong, who attended, said the site, which centred on simple assembly and testing of general chips, will become a hub for advanced HBM for AI chips, Financial News reported.
Onyang figures as stated by President Lee Jae-myung on 12 November 2026 (Seoul Economic Daily, Aju Business Daily); 2026 capex guidance from Samsung’s third-quarter release. Shares are our arithmetic.
Set Against Samsung’s Own Capex
Samsung said on 29 October that its capital expenditure reached 29 trillion won in the third quarter, up 19.8 trillion won from a year earlier. It expects about 84.4 trillion won for the full year, including 76.8 trillion won in its Device Solutions (DS) chip division.
By our arithmetic, the 40 trillion won of Onyang equipment equals about 52% of the DS Division’s 2026 budget and about 1.4 times the third quarter’s spending. The equipment figure is about 6.7 times the 6 trillion won fab figure, by our arithmetic.
Samsung’s release also said that, in 2027, the business expects “AI infrastructure capital expenditure to reach a historic level as the AI ecosystem expands”. On its earnings call it said its 2027 HBM supply was already sold out, as we reported.
Why Packaging Gear
HBM is made by stacking memory dies and packaging them next to an AI processor; Lee called Onyang an HBM packaging hub, not a memory fab. Samsung said in its release that it “significantly scaled up sales of HBM4” in the third quarter.
The speech also named other Chungcheong projects whose groundbreakings are on schedule: a memory and advanced packaging fab in Cheongju, an AI data centre in Dangjin and a biopharmaceutical plant in Osong. Samsung’s market value rose about $11 billion at the Seoul open on 12 November, as we reported.
The Structural Read
As we read the speech, Onyang moves Samsung’s HBM bottleneck from wafers to packaging: the money goes mostly into tools that stack and package memory, not into a new memory fab.
As we read the numbers, the equipment pledge is large next to Samsung’s own budget: about 1.4 quarters of third-quarter-level spending, by our arithmetic, with no schedule given for when it lands.
Samsung Electronics, Q3 2026 results, 29 Oct 2026
“For the DS Division, investments are planned for new fabs and other infrastructure to meet strong AI and HPC demand while ensuring readiness for the mid-to long term”
Three Implications
FOR SAMSUNG About 40 trillion won of Onyang equipment equals about 52% of its DS Division’s 76.8 trillion won 2026 budget, by our arithmetic.
FOR HBM BUYERS Samsung said on its earnings call that its 2027 HBM supply was already sold out, as we reported. Lee said Onyang will become an HBM packaging hub and gave no timing.
FOR KOREA Lee said three projects broke ground in Chungcheong four months after the July pledges, with Cheongju, Dangjin and Osong next.
The framework reads: “Memory is becoming the new compute.”
As we read it, Onyang is that thesis priced in won: about 40 trillion won of equipment, by Lee’s figures, for a site he called a key hub for advanced HBM packaging, equal to about 47% of Samsung’s 2026 capex guidance by our arithmetic. The framework predates the speech and does not discuss it.
Samsung’s 2026 capital expenditure from its third-quarter release (first half derived as 56.9 minus 29 trillion won; fourth quarter implied as 84.4 minus 56.9), against the Onyang equipment figure stated by President Lee. Derivations are our arithmetic.
What Is Not Established
Lee gave no schedule or split by year for the 40 trillion won of equipment; his words were that it follows in sequence. Samsung’s Korean newsroom had not published a release on the groundbreaking when we checked its feed at 01:50 UTC. The figures are the president’s, as quoted by Korean outlets; we could not load the presidential office’s own transcript. How much of the spending falls inside the 84.4 trillion won 2026 guidance is not stated. We did not contact Samsung for this piece.
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President Lee put about 40 trillion won, or about $29.9 billion by our arithmetic, of advanced equipment on top of a 6 trillion won packaging fab at Samsung’s Onyang campus. That equipment alone equals about 47% of Samsung’s whole 2026 capital expenditure guidance.
A note on sourcing. President Lee’s figures and remarks come from his speech at the Onyang groundbreaking on 12 November 2026, as quoted in Korean by Seoul Economic Daily and reported by Aju Business Daily; the translations are ours. Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s remarks are as reported by Financial News. Capital expenditure figures are from Samsung Electronics’ third-quarter 2026 results release, read in full. The dollar conversions use Seoul Money Brokerage Services’ won-dollar base rate for 12 November 2026, 1,336.7 won. Dollar values, shares and multiples are our arithmetic. We did not contact Samsung for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
