SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won reiterated the group’s plan to invest 8 trillion won ($6 billion) in the city of Ulsan, mostly in green energy.

“SK affiliates will invest a total of 8 trillion won in Ulsan’s green and energy transition businesses,” Chey said at the 2023 Ulsan Forum hosted in the southeastern industrial city on Thursday.

“Ulsan ARC, the world’s first plastic recycling complex, will be the first step.”

The Ulsan Advanced Recycling Cluster, or Ulsan ARC, is chemical subsidiary SK geo centric’s 1.8 trillion won project to build a plastic recycling complex through 2025. It will be located at SK Ulsan Complex, taking up 215,000-square-meter of floor space.

SK innovation last year pledged 5 trillion won for SK Ulsan Complex, its petrochemical plant, through 2027 to shift its fossil fuel-oriented activities to greener ones, such as plastic recycling and chemical reprocessing.

Chey emphasized the importance of utilizing AI to enhance the competitiveness of the city, where the local economy has long centered on manufacturing.

“If we build infrastructure that can pull in and use manufacturing data from the Ulsan region, the city can be reborn as an AI-centered one, a city that can pursue software projects alongside manufacturing ones,” he added.

Chey visited Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Friday to check up on a new chip factory under construction, part of a government-backed mega project to build a chip cluster in the region.

SK hynix, the chip-making affiliate of SK Group, plans to jointly build a chip factory with the government for testing 300-milimeter-based wafers and other technologies developed by small and midsized firms.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]