This clean room is inside a semiconductor manufacturing site of Samsung Electronics. Such production requires constant temperature, humidity, pressure and other factors like fine particulates since micro-processing of such chips is extremely sensitive to small dust or impurities. (Samsung Electronics)

By Yoo Yeon Gyeong

Investment in research and development (R&D) by the country's leading companies last year exceeded KRW 60 trillion, ranking the nation fifth worldwide.

Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP) said this in a report released on April 29 on the trends of the world's top 2,000 companies for R&D investment. As of 2023, such investment hit a record-high EUR 1.25 trillion, up 7.7% from 2022.

Korean companies accounted for 3.4% of the sum with EUR 42.55 billion (KRW 66 trillion), placing Korea fifth worldwide. Leading the pack was the U.S. with 42.3% of the total, followed by China (17.2%), Germany (8.9%) and Japan (8.3%).

R&D investment by Korea jumped 23.7% last year, the largest rise by far among the top seven countries in the category. China's rose 9.6%, Germany's 9.2%, France's 7.7%, Japan's 7.1%, the U.K.'s 6.8% and the U.S.' 5.9%.

By industry, the highest proportion of R&D investment was in information and communication technology hardware with 62.7%, followed by automotive components (11.8%), others (10.3%) and industrial materials (7.9%).

By company, Samsung Electronics was the biggest R&D investor with EUR 19.89 billion, or seventh in the world. SK Hynix plunked down EUR 5.37 billion, up 69.3% from 2022 and earning the company its first entry into the world's top 50 at 42nd.

dusrud21@korea.kr