Memorable event: Samsung strike threatens global AI industry
In the South Korean technology sector, there is an open conflict between enterprises and employees. The breakdown of negotiations between Samsung Electronics management and the Samsung National Electronics Union (NSEU), representing the interests of tens of thousands of employees, signaled a large-scale strike that will begin on May 21. The shutdown of the world's largest manufacturer of microchips, scheduled for next Thursday, comes at a time of an already difficult situation in the global supply chain. For the global economy, this means the risk of a shortage of basic components, without which the functioning of modern industry — from the production of smartphones to the production of unmanned systems — becomes difficult. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Bonuses on the background of records
The formal reason for the start of the strike was disagreements in the profit-sharing system. In 2026, Samsung's semiconductor sector showed phenomenal dynamics: the operating profit of the core division increased 48-fold in the first quarter. This rise is due to the high demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is necessary for learning large language models.
The union demands that employees receive 15% of the company's operating profit in the form of annual bonuses and completely eliminate the existing bonus limits. In addition, NSEU insists on increasing payments even for employees of those divisions that remain unprofitable. Samsung's management's position is more conservative: the company is ready to allocate 10% of profits for bonuses, but categorically refuses to violate the principle of remuneration depending on the financial results of a particular department.
The corporation's management believes that capitulating to the demands of the union will set a dangerous precedent for the entire Korean industry. Kakao Corp. is closely monitoring the outcome of this dispute. and other tech giants, where labor collectives are also preparing for protests. For the South Korean government, the situation is complicated by the fact that Samsung provides a significant share of national exports. The country's bank has already estimated the potential losses from a prolonged strike at 0.5% of annual GDP.
Memory paralysis
If the parties do not reach a compromise in the coming days and the strike becomes protracted, the global microelectronics market will face a new supply crisis. Samsung's role in global component manufacturing cannot be overemphasized. The company holds about 45% of the global RAM market and about 32% of the flash memory (NAND) market.
The specificity of semiconductor plants lies in the continuity of the technological process. Stopping lithographic machines even for a few hours requires a subsequent long calibration and can lead to the rejection of huge batches of silicon wafers.
In case of multi-day downtime, a domino effect will occur. It will affect, in particular, the automotive industry. A modern electric car contains hundreds of Samsung chips. Disruption of supplies will lead to the shutdown of pipelines in Europe and the United States, which have just begun to recover from the logistical disruptions of previous years.
Another sector at risk is consumer electronics. Apple, which is both a competitor and Samsung's largest customer, is critically dependent on Korean memory modules and displays for iPhone production. Delays in Seoul automatically mean disruption of schedules for the release of new models to global markets.
Finally, data center providers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft) purchase Samsung memory in terabytes. The lack of new supplies will lead to a sharp rise in the cost of server equipment.
The strike at Samsung is already the third blow for the artificial intelligence sector. By May 2026, the AI industry is experiencing considerable difficulties due to events in the Middle East. The blocking of the Strait of Hormuz and the war in Iran led, firstly, to an increase in energy prices (oil above $100 per barrel, spot gas in Europe - more than $550 per 1,000 cubic meters increased the operating costs of data center owners). Secondly, the conflict has cut off the supply of critical materials. Qatar, which provides a third of the world's helium consumption, cannot ship gas through the blocked strait. And Israel, which is a key supplier of bromine for etching microchips, is in a war zone.
The strike at Samsung factories, if it goes according to a protracted scenario, closes another door — access to physical hardware. Without Korean HBM memory, Nvidia's latest accelerators turn out to be nothing more than chunks of silicon. The AI infrastructure market, in which it was planned to invest more than $650 billion this year, risks facing the inability to use these funds.
Desperate times, desperate measures
The situation is forcing South Korean President Lee Jae-myung to prepare emergency measures. The government has an "emergency arbitration" mechanism in its arsenal, which allows it to legally prohibit strikes in industries of critical importance to national security. However, the application of this rule, which has not been used for more than twenty years, will deal a heavy blow to the political ratings of the president, whose electorate largely consists of trade union representatives.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung
In an environment where energy is expensive, materials are scarce, and logistics are disrupted by war, Samsung's labor conflict may become the point after which the boom in artificial intelligence will give way to stagnation due to the physical lack of necessary computing power. And all this adds up to the growing problems in the entire global economy.
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