AI chip demand nearly doubles South Korea's exports to a record $115 billion

South Korea's exports jumped 93.7% from a year earlier to a record $115.3 billion in October, powered by sales of computer chips for artificial intelligence, the country's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said Sunday.

Chip exports more than tripled, rising 259% to $56.4 billion, nearly half the total, Yonhap News Agency reported.  The ministry credited big tech companies' spending on AI data centers.

South Korea is home to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the two biggest memory-chip makers.  AI computers need huge amounts of fast memory to hold the data AI models work with, so the building boom has sent demand soaring.

Shipments to the United States rose 185.8% to $24.9 billion, led by chips and computer equipment for AI, and exports to China rose 133.6%.  Imports rose 36%, leaving a $42.5 billion trade surplus.  The ministry said yearly exports could top $1 trillion as soon as November.

Trade with the U.S. and tariffs

A trade surplus means a country sells more to the rest of the world than it buys; a deficit is the reverse.  The United States has run a goods deficit with South Korea for years.  In 2025 Americans bought $125.5 billion in South Korean goods and sold $69.1 billion there, a $56.5 billion gap, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Through August of this year the gap was already $55.1 billion.  Cars and auto parts made up about 31% of U.S. imports from South Korea last year, the Congressional Research Service, Congress' nonpartisan research office, says.  The U.S. comes out ahead on services, such as travel and finance, with a $13.3 billion surplus in 2025.

A 2012 free trade agreement, known as KORUS, removed most tariffs, the taxes on imports, between the two countries.  Since 2025 the Trump administration has added new ones.  Most South Korean goods now face a 12.5% U.S. tariff, imposed in July after a U.S. investigation found South Korea had not banned imports made with forced labor, according to the research service and the U.S. Trade Representative.  Goods already covered by separate national-security tariffs are left out of that one:  Korean cars and auto parts pay 15% under a 2025 deal, and steel and aluminum pay 50%.  Earlier tariffs set under an emergency-powers law were lifted in February after a Supreme Court ruling.

Chips are mostly treated separately.  A 25% tariff the White House set in January covers only certain advanced AI processors, such as Nvidia's H200, and not those headed for U.S. data centers.  The 2025 deal also limits how high any future U.S. chip tariff on South Korea can go, subject to further talks, the research service says.  The White House has said broader chip tariffs could come.

The figures show how much of Silicon Valley's AI spending flows overseas to the factories that make the parts.  Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan cautioned that rising protectionism and Middle East tensions keep trade uncertain, Yonhap reported.

Source:  South Korea Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources release (in Korean), Nov. 1, 2026, Yonhap News Agency, Nov. 1, 2026, U.S. Census Bureau trade with South Korea, Congressional Research Service, Sept. 17, 2026, U.S. Trade Representative fact sheet, July 2026 and White House, Jan. 14, 2026.