Forging A U.S.-South Korea Alliance Powered By Chips, Batteries, And Clean Technologies

On December 8, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and South Korean National Security Advisor Cho Tae-yong led the first-ever U.S.-South Korea Next Generation Critical and Emerging Technologies (CET) Dialogue in South Korea, which was announced during South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s April 2023 state visit to Washington, D.C. Sullivan also pledged to expand cooperation with like-minded allies through the launching of a U.S.-South Korea-India technology dialogue in 2024, as well as met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts to follow up on the commitments made at the August 2023 Camp David summit to deepen U.S.-South Korea-Japan trilateral cooperation. These meetings are intended to generate bureaucratic momentum toward the goal of “locking in” whole-of-alliance cooperation among U.S. allies.

The fact sheet authorizes lead agencies in the United States and South Korea to establish new channels for coordination in each of the identified areas and envisages close cooperation between the United States and South Korea as part of a newly established Disruptive Technology Strike Force led by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Commerce designed to protect and defend against adversary efforts to steal jointly developed advanced technology.

In the area of semiconductor development, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) will promote joint research and development in leading technologies, while a newly established U.S. National Semiconductor Technology Center will work with the Korean Advanced Semiconductor Technology Center to promote public and private research efforts between the two countries.

The NSF and MSIT will also lead research cooperation on biotechnology and biomanufacturing, which includes the implementation of joint biotechnology research between the Lawrence Berkley National Lab and the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology. The envisioned cooperation will include research and exchange tie-ups in medical research domains between the U.S. National Institutes of Health and South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health and the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infection Disease and the South Korean National Institute of Infection Diseases, and the U.S. National Cancer Institute and the Korean National Cancer Center.

In the area of batteries and clean energy technology development, cooperation between U.S. national labs, including the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, and South Korean counterparts will develop next-generation batteries, clean energy technologies, utility-scale energy storage, and projects for establishing a battery safety database and international standards.

To advance new research in the quantum sector, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science are tasked with promoting research in support of “next-generation superconducting quantum computing” alongside efforts to enhance collaboration between the Quantum Economic Development Consortium and the Korea Quantum Industry Association.

In the field of AI, both governments committed to cooperate on developing international governance frameworks for AI, which includes South Korea’s hosting of the Mini Virtual Summit on AI, the Global AI Forum, and the Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain Summit in 2024. The National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards also agreed to collaborate on developing technology standards.

Finally, both governments pledged to deepen digital connectivity and information communication technology (ICT) coordination on cloud technology, promote a “secure and resilient ICT infrastructure” bilaterally and globally through joint financing, development, and standardization of next-generation ICT platforms, and establish a common approach to managing data protection and data flows through the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules Forum.

The upshot of the Next Generation CET Dialogue is that the United States and South Korea will collaborate on developing upstream technologies across a wide range of sectors to a greater degree than ever before, elevating the role of technology coordination alongside security as the glue that binds the two allies together. The envisaged scope and depth of cooperation promises to tie the two countries together in unprecedented ways. Such cooperation serves as a mechanism intended to integrate the two countries’ approaches toward technology cooperation, with the intention of preserving U.S. and South Korean leadership in defining global standards to develop cutting-edge technologies.

This approach paints a promising future for U.S.-South Korean cooperation, but it is premised on two critically important assumptions that must be successfully upheld for such an approach to succeed and achieve its full potential. First, the United States must maintain its leading role in global technological innovation and prevent competitors and adversaries from challenging U.S. technological leadership. Second, the United States must find ways to relax existing legal restrictions currently prohibiting the envisaged technological cooperation to ensure that its allies are able to fully join U.S. initiatives as equal stakeholders in an integrated approach that supports continued U.S. and allied technological leadership.