[CEO Rivals] Semiconductor 'Two Tops' Samsung Kyung Kye-hyun - TSMC Wei Zhejia

If Semiconductors Falter, the Economy Faces Big Trouble
CEO Bearing the Heavy Burden of 'National Economy' on Their Shoulders

"A world where it is difficult to compete without keeping up with AI is just around the corner. Many specialized fields will be replaced by AI." - Kyung Kye-hyun, President of Samsung Electronics

"The speech at the next annual TSMC Technology Forum will probably be written by ChatGPT. The only thing AI and 5G cannot do is make politicians wiser." - Wei Zhejia (Wei Zhejia), CEO of TSMC

The CEOs of the world's top two semiconductor companies, Samsung Electronics and TSMC, say this about AI. From the perspective of semiconductor company CEOs, the opening of the AI era is inevitably welcome. As AI server shipments increase, the demand for high-capacity, high-performance semiconductors surges.

Kyung, who oversees the semiconductor business at Samsung Electronics, is currently very focused on AI. He senses that a world where it is difficult to compete without keeping up with AI is imminent. This also aligns with the concerns of Samsung Electronics, the world's number one memory semiconductor company. Samsung Electronics is actively supplying DDR5, known as the next-generation memory, in response to the recent surge in demand for data servers driven by the generative AI craze such as ChatGPT.

Wei, CEO of Taiwan's TSMC, the world's number one foundry (semiconductor contract design) company, talks about AI whenever he speaks. This is inevitable because TSMC is known as the biggest beneficiary of AI expansion and is reportedly set to release a generative AI-dedicated semiconductor within the year in partnership with Nvidia, the world's largest graphics processing unit (GPU) company based in the U.S. Nvidia handles the design, and TSMC manages mass production.

The 'top two' semiconductor companies are led by semiconductor experts. Kyung, born in 1963 in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do, is a typical 'engineering student' who earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in Control and Instrumentation Engineering from Seoul National University. There is an anecdote from his middle school days when he inserted a wire into a school outlet, causing the copper to melt and the school to lose power. Curious from a young age, he joined Samsung Electronics in 1988. Since 1994, he has worked in the memory division's DRAM design team and has expertise in NAND flash design and development. After serving as CEO of Samsung Electro-Mechanics in 2020, he has led Samsung Electronics' semiconductor division since 2021.

Wei, the CEO of TSMC, is also a semiconductor expert who earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in Electrical Engineering from National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Yale University in the U.S. He has worked as a development expert at TSMC since 1998.

After TSMC founder Morris Chang stepped down from management, Wei co-managed the company with Chairman Liu Deyin until 2018 and now serves as the sole CEO. He has held positions such as head of business development and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at TSMC and is recognized for his strong financial acumen, including investment. Before joining TSMC, he worked at global semiconductor companies such as Chartered Semiconductor in Singapore, STMicroelectronics in Switzerland, and Texas Instruments in the U.S.

Both CEOs carry the heavy burden of 'national economy' on their shoulders.

They sit in positions where a single misstep in strategy, such as investment or production cuts, can not only jeopardize their companies but also shake the national economy. Both South Korea and Taiwan have export-driven economic structures where economic activity thrives when exports perform well, and semiconductors are at the core of these exports.

However, although they share the heavy responsibility, their compensation differs significantly. Kyung's compensation last year totaled 2.953 billion KRW, including a salary of 1.019 billion KRW, bonuses of 1.795 billion KRW, and welfare benefits of 139 million KRW. According to Taiwanese media, Wei's compensation last year was 643 million TWD (approximately 27.7 billion KRW). Wei received a large performance bonus thanks to record-breaking profits last year.

Both CEOs are recognized for their communication skills internally and externally. Kyung is a rare SNS activist among Samsung CEOs. Recently, as a lover of culture and arts, he posted photos appreciating the Joseon white porcelain exhibition held at the Leeum Museum of Art, and in March, he shared his impressions after visiting an exhibition by Martin Margiela, a fashion designer who was the creative director of Herm?s and founded the fashion brand Maison Margiela. Every Wednesday, he communicates with employees through the internal communication channel 'WeTalk.'

Wei's greatest strength is considered to be his global network. He boasts connections with global 'insiders' such as U.S. President Joe Biden and Apple CEO Tim Cook. These networks were built over decades of producing and supplying semiconductors to major companies worldwide. Bloomberg positively evaluated Wei for leveraging his extensive network to diversify TSMC's customer base and lead large-scale semiconductor factory investments overseas in the U.S., Japan, and other countries, including naming him among the '50 People of the Year.'

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.