South Korean Official Proposes Taxing AI Chipmaker Profits to Fund Basic Income and Youth Startups

A top South Korean official proposed on May 12, 2026 that citizens should share in the profits of the country’s AI chip boom. Kim Yong-beom suggested that some of the windfall from the AI chip boom should be redistributed to support basic income programs for rural communities and startup funding for young people.

Samsung and SK Hynix have seen huge profits and soaring share prices as demand for semiconductors surges.

The proposal, which Semafor reported, spooked investors even as several prominent figures in artificial intelligence have advanced similar concepts. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has suggested some sort of universal basic income funded by taxes on AI companies.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates floated a “robot tax” on companies automating workers’ jobs away in 2017.

Kim Yong-beom is a top South Korean official, according to Semafor. The remarks by Kim Yong-beom come as South Korea’s semiconductor sector benefits from global demand tied to advances in artificial intelligence. Semafor reported that the official’s suggestion involved redirecting portions of the gains realized by the country’s leading chipmakers.

While the proposal triggered immediate negative reactions in financial markets, the broader notion of using AI-driven profits to fund social programs has circulated among technology leaders for years. The 2017 comment by Bill Gates represented an early version of such thinking, centered on taxation of automation rather than direct profit sharing.

Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis, Sam Altman and Elon Musk have each at different times endorsed variants of universal basic income financed through levies on AI companies.