President Lee Jae Myung ordered the temporary relocation of the Gwangju military air base to enable a massive semiconductor and AI project.
The decision accelerates South Korea's push to dominate the global chip market by repurposing strategic military land for industrial use. By removing the air base, the government aims to eliminate a primary land-use bottleneck for the Honam Semiconductor project.
Lee said the Ministry of National Defense should temporarily relocate the Gwangju base's functions to other military airports by mid-2028 [2]. This timeline ensures the site can be utilized as part of the Honam Semiconductor mega-project [2].
The planned chip and AI hub is estimated to have a scale of 800 trillion Korean won [1]. The project is designed to integrate semiconductor fabrication with artificial intelligence research, creating a concentrated industrial cluster in the Honam region.
To meet the mid-2028 deadline [2], the administration is coordinating between the Ministry of National Defense and regional planners. The relocation involves shifting operational capacities to other existing military airports to maintain national security while freeing the Gwangju site for construction [2].
President Lee said the move is necessary to speed up the development of the hub. The administration views the semiconductor cluster as a critical component of national economic security, and technological sovereignty.
“President Lee Jae Myung ordered the temporary relocation of the Gwangju military air base.”
This order signals a prioritization of economic and technological infrastructure over existing military footprints. By committing to a mid-2028 deadline for relocation, the South Korean government is attempting to compress the timeline for the Honam Semiconductor project to compete with other global AI hubs. The scale of the investment suggests a strategic effort to decentralize the tech industry away from the Seoul metropolitan area and into the Honam region.
