[Edaily Reporter Choi Oh-hyun ] As the sixth anniversary of the passing of the late Lee Kun-Hee, former chairman of Samsung, approaches on October 25, his legacy as a business leader is once again in the spotlight. The semiconductor business, which he launched using his personal funds, has grown over the past half-century into the core business of SamsungElectronics, a global market leader. The establishment of a quality-focused “New Management” philosophy and a merit-based personnel culture laid the foundation for Samsung’s growth into the global corporation it is today. Chairman Lee’s legacy is also extending beyond industry into the fields of culture and the arts.

This year’s memorial service was held two days earlier, on the 23rd, as the anniversary fell on a Sunday. Jay Y. Lee returned to South Korea that day after inspecting a construction site in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and immediately visited the family cemetery in Imok-dong, Jangan-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, to pay his respects to his father. He then had lunch with the executive team at the Creative Hall of the Samsung Human Resources Development Institute in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.

Amid a boom in the memory chip industry driven by growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI), observers speculate that Chairman Lee likely referenced the late Chairman’s management philosophy during this luncheon and urged the executives to prepare for the future. Following the 2022 memorial service, just before he assumed the chairmanship, he emphasized during a luncheon with the executive team, “Now is the time to act more boldly and take on challenges,” adding, “The more difficult and challenging the times, the more we must prepare in advance and build our capabilities.”

Amid this, the importance of proactive investment and securing technological competitiveness—points emphasized by the late Chairman Lee—is once again being highlighted. Underpinning the “new milestone of 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit” was his decisiveness in recognizing the potential of semiconductors early on and continuing to make bold investments at every critical juncture.

In 1974, the late Chairman Lee laid the foundation for Samsung’s semiconductor business by acquiring a 50% stake in Korea Semiconductor—which was facing financial difficulties at the time—using $500,000 of his personal funds. Although even within Samsung there was skepticism about the prospects for success, he identified semiconductors as a future growth engine. As investments in technology development and production facilities continued, Samsung developed the world’s first 64M DRAM in 1992 and rose to the top of the global DRAM market.

At every critical juncture, he made bold investments to increase wafer size. In 1993, Samsung launched a mass production line using 8-inch wafers, which were larger than the 6-inch wafers that were the industry standard at the time. In 2001, the company continued its transition to larger-diameter wafers by launching a 12-inch wafer production line. The strategy was to produce more chips at once on larger wafers, thereby increasing productivity and securing cost competitiveness.

Of course, the risks were significant. Changing wafer sizes required massive capital investment to build new production lines and the development of process technologies capable of maintaining consistent quality across larger wafers. If yield rates could not be improved, the company risked incurring massive investment losses without reaping the benefits of increased production volume. Despite these challenges, the late Chairman Lee chose to prioritize securing next-generation production technologies.

These investments and innovations have become the foundation underpinning Samsung’s competitiveness today. According to Samsung, SamsungElectronics’ global DRAM market share reached 39.4% in the second quarter of this year, ranking first worldwide. It also ranked first in the NAND market with a 29.3% share. In the third quarter of this year, the company posted a preliminary consolidated operating profit of 107.4 trillion won, ushering in an era of quarterly operating profits exceeding 100 trillion won. SamsungElectronics was the first to reach this milestone, a feat even major tech giants like NVIDIA and Apple had not yet achieved.

Along with technological innovation, the company also transformed its organizational culture. A prime example is the “New Management” initiative declared in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1993. At the time, the late Chairman Lee ordered a shift from quantitative growth to a quality-first approach, stating, “Change everything except your wife and children.” In 1995, the company demonstrated its commitment to quality management by scrapping approximately 50 billion won worth of products—including defective cell phones—at its Gumi plant in North Gyeongsang Province. Emphasizing the philosophy that “one genius can support 100,000 people,” he also introduced the Regional Expert System in 1990.

The cultural legacy he left behind is also playing a role in promoting Korean art on the world stage. Throughout his life, the late Chairman Lee devoted himself to collecting and preserving Korea’s cultural heritage. In April 2021, his family donated approximately 23,000 cultural artifacts and works of art collected by the late Chairman to institutions such as the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The donated items included Jeong Seon’s “Inwangjesekdo” and Kim Hong-do’s “Chuseongbudo,” as well as modern and contemporary artworks by Kim Whan-ki, Park Soo-keun, and Lee Jung-seop, alongside works by international masters such as Monet and Picasso. The cumulative number of visitors to the domestic touring exhibition has exceeded 3.5 million.

Beginning last November at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., and continuing at the Art Institute of Chicago, a special exhibition is now being held at the British Museum starting this month. This is the first large-scale special exhibition of Korean art at the British Museum in 42 years. During his lifetime, the late Chairman Lee supported the establishment of Korean galleries at major museums abroad and sponsored artists’ activities overseas. Following his efforts to enhance the competitiveness of Korean industry through investments in semiconductors, he also contributed to elevating the status of Korean culture through the preservation and sponsorship of cultural heritage.

Meanwhile, SamsungElectronics will continue its tributes by holding a memorial concert marking the sixth anniversary of the late Chairman Lee’s passing on the 28th at the Concert Hall of the SamsungElectronics Talent Development Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.