[Edaily Reporter SOYEON KIM ] “One thing I can say with confidence is that the semiconductor industry will be a growth sector for the next 10 years.”

Kwon Oh-hyun, former chairman of SamsungElectronics, made these remarks on the 13th during a roundtable discussion at the Digital Insight Forum hosted by the KoreaInformation&Communication Technology Promotion Association (KAIT) in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. “The memory semiconductor market has experienced a boom that even I did not anticipate. I don’t think the rest of the world expected it either,” he said.

Former Chairman Kwon is a management guru who joined SamsungElectronics in 1985 and rose to become its “professional CEO.” He is a living witness who has experienced firsthand the history of Korea’s semiconductor growth—from the “memory wasteland” of the 1980s to the development of DRAM and the cultivation of System LSI. Former Chairman Kwon’s optimistic outlook is drawing even more attention amid recent debates in some quarters regarding a potential “peak-out” in the semiconductor market.

He said, “The semiconductor industry is a growth industry in terms of volume itself, as new demand sources—such as physical AI, humanoids, and autonomous vehicles—continue to emerge.” However, he believed it would be difficult for current semiconductor prices to persist. Former Chairman Kwon stated, “Current semiconductor prices are abnormal,” adding, “It is abnormal for the operating profit margin in the manufacturing sector to reach nearly 80%.”

Regarding the 52-hour workweek regulation for workers—a topic of increasingly heated debate—former Chairman Kwon said, “In businesses that create new concepts or in semiconductor research and development (R&D), the 52-hour workweek regulation should be relaxed.” He specifically noted that South Korea’s one-size-fits-all working hour regulations operate differently from those in the United States and Japan. For example, while the U.S. has a “white-collar exemption” system that relaxes working hour regulations for high-income professionals, South Korea does not have such a system.