If you want a single data point that captures how profoundly artificial intelligence is reshaping global wealth, look at South Korea’s billionaire class. The Forbes Korea’s 50 Richest 2026 list, compiled based on stock prices and exchange rates as of March 27, tells a story that would have seemed improbable a year ago: the collective net worth of the nation’s 50 wealthiest individuals has hit an all-time high of $175 billion — up 77% from $99 billion the previous year.
That is not the result of a broadly booming economy or a fortunate commodity cycle. It is, in large part, the direct financial consequence of one global technological trend: the insatiable demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, and South Korea’s deep-rooted position at the centre of the semiconductor supply chain that makes it possible.
Jay Y. Lee Reclaims the Summit
At the top of the list sits Samsung Electronics executive chairman Jay Y. Lee, who reclaims the No. 1 spot after slipping from it last year to private equity maven Michael Kim of MBK Partners. Lee added $13.8 billion to his fortune — the largest gain in dollar terms of anyone on the list — pushing his wealth to $21.6 billion, nearly tripling it in the space of one year.
The story behind that jump is rooted in Samsung’s dramatic transformation from a company under pressure to one riding a historic wave. Samsung is the world’s largest memory chipmaker by sales, and the AI boom has turned memory chips — long viewed as a commoditised, cyclical business — into one of the most strategically important products in the global technology economy. Every AI model trained, every GPU deployed, every data centre built requires vast quantities of high-bandwidth memory. Samsung is the company building much of it.
In particular, the mass production of High Bandwidth Memory 4, or HBM4 — which began in February this year — has been transformative. HBM4 is a critical component of Nvidia’s next-generation AI accelerators, and Samsung began selling it at around $700 per unit, a 20 to 30% premium over the previous generation. The company’s operating profit for the first quarter was tracking toward record levels as a result.
The $16.5 billion multiyear contract Samsung landed last July from Tesla to manufacture AI chips — one of the largest foundry orders the company has ever won from a single client — added further momentum and sent Samsung shares surging 6.8% on the day it was announced. The contract runs through 2033 and places Samsung’s $37 billion Taylor, Texas fabrication facility at the centre of Tesla’s autonomous driving and robotics ambitions.
It is a position Lee’s late father, Lee Kun-hee, held for over a decade before his death in 2020 at age 78. That Jay Y. Lee reclaims it now — having navigated years of legal battles, including a 2021 prison sentence and a presidential pardon in 2022 — adds a dimension of personal vindication to an already dramatic comeback story.
A Market That More Than Doubled
The wealth explosion at the top reflects a broader market phenomenon. South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index was the world’s top-performing major stock market over the 12 months prior to the list’s compilation date, more than doubling in that period. That kind of equity market performance lifts the net worth of every tycoon with significant stakes in publicly listed Korean companies.
In second place is Michael Kim of MBK Partners, with $9.9 billion. Despite slipping from the top spot, Kim’s wealth reflects the enduring strength of private equity in a market where large corporate restructurings continue to create opportunity.
Third-placed Seo Jung-jin, co-founder of biotechnology giant Celltrion, saw his wealth climb to $8.1 billion from $6.3 billion as Celltrion’s shares rallied 30% over the past year. The company has been on an aggressive expansion drive: in January it acquired a U.S. manufacturing facility from Eli Lilly for $330 million, and in March it announced plans to invest over $800 million to scale up domestic production capacity. Celltrion’s trajectory reflects a broader rise in Korean biotechnology that is reshaping the composition of the country’s billionaire class.
The Biggest Winner You Haven’t Heard Of
The most striking individual story in the 2026 rankings belongs not to any tech patriarch or pharma magnate but to Kwak Dong-shin, chairman and CEO of Hanmi Semiconductor. Kwak recorded the largest percentage gain on the entire list — over a fourfold increase in his wealth to $5.7 billion — propelling him from No. 22 to No. 11.
Hanmi Semiconductor doesn’t make chips itself. It makes the precision equipment used to manufacture them — specifically, the thermal compression bonding machines critical to assembling High Bandwidth Memory. As AI-driven demand for HBM exploded, Hanmi’s machines became indispensable infrastructure in the semiconductor supply chain. The company’s shares mirrored the fourfold rise in Kwak’s personal wealth almost exactly, making his story one of the clearest illustrations of how deeply the AI boom has penetrated South Korea’s industrial ecosystem, from the chip giants down to the specialist equipment makers that enable them.
New Faces: Biotech and Beyond
Seven new billionaires joined the 50 Richest list this year, and their backgrounds reveal much about South Korea’s evolving economic identity. Three newcomers come from the country’s rapidly rising biotech sector. Lee Sang-hoon, founder and CEO of ABL Bio, entered the rankings with a $1.4 billion fortune after his company signed a $2.6 billion licensing and joint research agreement with Eli Lilly in November to develop therapies for diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The deal validated ABL Bio’s proprietary technology platform and sent the company’s valuation soaring.
Among the new entries tied to AI infrastructure is Sung Kyu-dong, founder and CEO of EO Technics, which manufactures laser-based equipment used in the production of memory chips. His inclusion is another example of how the AI boom is generating wealth not just at the headline level — the chip designers and cloud providers — but all the way down through the supply chain of tools and processes that make those chips possible.
What This Tells Us About AI’s Economic Reach
South Korea’s wealth story in 2026 is not simply a list of rich people getting richer. It is a window into which nations and industries are structurally positioned to benefit from the AI infrastructure buildout — and which are not.
South Korea sits in an enviable position. It is home to the world’s largest memory chipmaker, several leading chip equipment manufacturers, a robust biotechnology sector, and a chaebol system that, despite its governance complexities, can mobilise enormous capital and industrial capacity at speed. When global demand for AI infrastructure surges, that positioning translates into economic gains across the country’s largest corporations and, in turn, across its wealthiest individuals.
The 34 of 50 tycoons who are richer this year than last are not all in semiconductors. But the AI-driven Kospi rally touched virtually every major Korean corporate family through their listed holdings. The country’s richest have never collectively been wealthier. And the technology driving that wealth — the relentless global appetite for smarter, faster computing — shows no sign of abating.
Written by Shalin Soni, CMA specializing in financial analysis, global markets, and corporate strategy, with hands-on experience in financial planning and analytical decision-making.
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Source: Based on Forbes and publicly available information.