Technology and Innovation Policy in South Korea

South Korea’s technology and innovation policy represents one of the most deliberately orchestrated developmental-state projects in the modern world. From the 1960s through the present, successive governments have shaped a coordinated ecosystem linking research institutions, chaebols (family-owned conglomerates), universities, and venture capital to transform a resource-poor, war-devastated nation into a global leader in semiconductors, displays, telecommunications, and artificial intelligence. The country’s R&D spending as a share of GDP—approximately 4.9% in 2022, the highest among OECD nations—reflects the sustained commitment of both public and private sectors to technology-led growth. The policy framework combining strategic industrial selection, subsidized R&D, talent recruitment, and geopolitical alignment remains central to South Korea’s economic strategy and its positioning in the US–China technology competition.

Developmental-State Foundations (1960s–1980s)

Park Chung-hee’s Industrial Strategy

South Korea’s technology policy emerged from the developmental-state model pioneered under President Park Chung-hee (1961–1979). Rather than relying on market forces alone, his government identified strategic sectors—electronics, heavy industry, petrochemicals, shipbuilding—and actively promoted them through targeted credit allocation, import tariffs, technology transfer agreements with foreign partners, and performance-based export incentives. By the early 1970s, Samsung, Hyundai, and Lucky-Goldstar (later LG) had begun semiconductor and electronics operations under state guidance, often through joint ventures or licensing arrangements transferring Japanese and American knowhow into Korean firms.

The Electronics Industry Promotion Law (전자공업진흥법) of 1969 designated electronics as a priority sector and authorized preferential financing for qualifying companies. Subsequent five-year economic development plans (Korea implemented seven consecutive five-year plans from 1962 to 1996) directed investment toward electronics assembly, telecommunications equipment, and eventually chip manufacturing. The “push-pull” model—where state research institutes provided technological foundations that chaebols then commercialized—became the defining pattern of Korean industrial policy.

Institutional Infrastructure

The government built a parallel research infrastructure to execute technology strategy. Key institutions founded in this era include:

• KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology): Founded in 1971 in Seoul (later relocated to Daejeon in 1989) with financial and technical assistance from USAID and MIT, KAIST became South Korea’s premier science and engineering university, modeled on MIT but with mandatory research service commitments for Korean industry. By the 2020s, KAIST employed over 600 faculty members and enrolled approximately 10,000 graduate students; its alumni include founders or senior leaders at Samsung, Kakao, and leading semiconductor design firms.
• ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute): Founded in 1976 (as TRI, renamed 1985) in Daejeon’s Daedeok Research Complex, ETRI has more than 2,000 researchers and has been the central government lab for telecommunications standards, semiconductor process technology, and AI. ETRI developed key technology components for TDX digital telephone switches in the 1980s, CDMA mobile standards adopted worldwide in the 1990s, and 5G specifications in the 2010s.
• POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology): Founded in 1986 by POSCO (the steel conglomerate), POSTECH became a world-class research institution in materials science, semiconductor materials, and advanced manufacturing, complementing KAIST in STEM talent development.
• Daedeok Research Complex (Daedeok Innopolis): A purpose-built research cluster in Daejeon established in the 1970s, housing KAIST, ETRI, KERI (Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute), KRICT (Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology), and dozens of other national labs alongside private R&D centers. By the 2020s, the complex employed approximately 65,000 researchers.

Semiconductor Strategy and the “Memory-Chip Path” (1980s–2010s)

Government-Coordinated Entry into DRAM

South Korea’s most celebrated policy success is the deliberate conquest of the global DRAM market. In 1983, Samsung Electronics made the strategic decision—backed by government financing—to enter DRAM manufacturing, then dominated by Japanese firms (Toshiba, Hitachi, NEC, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu) and contested by American companies (Intel, Texas Instruments, Motorola). Samsung licensed technology from Micron Technology in 1983 and reverse-engineered components to develop its own 64K DRAM chips, achieving production by late 1983—an extraordinary time-to-market compared to established competitors.

Government support during the entry phase included:

• R&D consortia: The Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) project (1986–1990) brought together ETRI, Samsung, Hyundai, and Goldstar under a government-funded joint research program modeled on Japan’s MITI VLSI project (1976–1980), but compressed into a shorter timeline and focused on catching up rather than foundational research.
• Preferential financing: The Korea Development Bank and Export-Import Bank extended long-term loans at below-market rates for costly fab construction. A single 300mm wafer fabrication plant required $10–15 billion in capital investment by the 2010s; government risk-sharing was essential to enable chaebol boards to commit.
• Technology protection: Korea’s government maintained strict limits on Chinese acquisition of Korean semiconductor companies and knowhow, with the National Intelligence Service (NIS) designating semiconductor process secrets as “national core technology” subject to prosecution for unauthorized disclosure.
• Workforce supply: Government-mandated expansion of electrical engineering programs at universities, combined with military draft exemptions for engineers working at designated strategic companies, ensured a pipeline of skilled workers.

Market Dominance

The strategy produced extraordinary results. By 1992, Samsung had surpassed its Japanese competitors to become the world’s largest DRAM producer—and by 1993 the world’s largest memory-chip maker overall—a position it has maintained continuously since. Hyundai Electronics (which merged with LG Semiconductor in 1999 to form Hynix, later acquired by SK Group in 2012 as SK Hynix) similarly rose to market leadership. As of 2024–2025, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together hold approximately 70% of the global DRAM market and 50% of NAND flash (solid-state storage) memory. This duopoly (with U.S.-based Micron Technology the only other significant competitor) is a direct product of the coordinated industrial policy of the 1980s–1990s.

The strategy also produced specific technical milestones used as marketing and strategic signals:

• 1992: Samsung becomes world’s largest DRAM maker, surpassing NEC
• 1994: Samsung ships 256Mb DRAM, the first in the world
• 1999: 1Gb DRAM chip first produced by Samsung
• 2013: Samsung begins 3D V-NAND flash production, a manufacturing architecture it pioneered
• 2023–2024: SK Hynix’s HBM3 and HBM3E (high-bandwidth memory) adopted by NVIDIA for H100/H200 AI accelerators, giving Korea a critical position in the AI training supply chain

Pangyo Techno Valley and the Seoul Metropolitan Cluster

While heavy manufacturing concentrated in the Gyeonggi-Suwon-Icheon corridor (Samsung’s fabs at Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek, SK Hynix’s fabs at Icheon and Cheongju), the government built Pangyo Techno Valley in Seongnam (adjacent to Seoul) beginning in 2005 as a high-tech park for IT, biotechnology, and game companies. Pangyo attracted Kakao, Krafton, NCSoft, Bluehole (PUBG’s developer), and dozens of AI and fintech startups. By the 2020s, Pangyo housed over 1,300 companies and more than 76,000 workers, functioning as a Korean analogue to Silicon Valley’s tech cluster.

R&D Investment and Institutional Framework

Scale of Investment

South Korea’s R&D spending figures are among the world’s highest as a proportion of GDP. Key figures (won figures converted at approximate exchange rates):

Year	Total R&D (% GDP)	Government Share	Corporate Share
2010	3.47%	~22%	~77%
2015	4.22%	~22%	~78%
2020	4.81%	~25%	~75%
2022	4.93% (~₩112.7 trillion / ~$86 billion)	~25%	~75%

The corporate share—unusually high by international standards—reflects the massive private R&D budgets of Samsung Electronics (which alone spent approximately ₩28 trillion / $21 billion on R&D in 2022) and SK Hynix (approximately ₩5.5 trillion in 2022). Government R&D flows through the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE), and Ministry of SMEs and Startups, distributed across the national research institutes (Government-funded Research Institutes, GRIs) and university grants.

Tax Incentives for Corporate R&D

South Korea’s tax code provides substantial support for private R&D. Under the Restriction of Special Taxation Act, qualifying R&D expenditures for mid-sized and large companies receive a 15–25% tax credit on the incremental amount above the prior three-year average. For SMEs, the credit rate rises to 25–50%. These incentives, combined with direct subsidies, effectively reduce the after-tax cost of R&D investment, particularly for chaebols operating at the tax-optimization frontier. OECD analysis has found Korean R&D tax subsidies among the most generous among member countries.

University Research Ecosystem

Government programs specifically targeting university research include:

• BK21 (Brain Korea 21): Launched in 1999, expanded in phases (2006, 2013, 2020), this program provides multi-year grants to graduate departments at national and private universities, conditioning funding on research output metrics, international collaboration, and industry placement rates. The fourth phase (BK21 Four, 2020–2027) committed ₩2.03 trillion ($1.5 billion) over seven years.
• IBS (Institute for Basic Science): Established in 2011 to fund curiosity-driven basic research, modeled on Germany’s Max Planck Society. IBS operates 31 research centers across universities, each led by a “director” with 10-year guaranteed funding. The institution represents South Korea’s effort to build fundamental scientific capacity beyond applied engineering.

Strategic R&D Initiatives and Industrial Policy (2010s–Present)

K-Semiconductor Strategy

In May 2021, the Moon Jae-in government announced the K-Semiconductor Strategy, a comprehensive plan to reinforce South Korea’s semiconductor leadership amid accelerating US–China competition and perceived vulnerability in a world where logic-chip production (dominated by Taiwan’s TSMC) increasingly concentrated geopolitically. Key elements:

• Private investment mobilization: The government announced that Samsung and SK Hynix had committed to invest a combined ₩510 trillion ($390 billion) in domestic semiconductor capacity through 2030, one of the largest industrial investment announcements in Korean history. By 2023, actual committed capital expenditure trajectories indicated Samsung alone planned approximately ₩300 trillion in semiconductor investment over the decade.
• Government co-investment: A ₩1 trillion government semiconductor R&D fund was established, with ETRI, KAIST, and university labs receiving grants for advanced packaging (3D stacking, chiplet integration), compound semiconductors (GaN, SiC), and next-generation lithography.
• Semiconductor special industrial complex: Designation of a “semiconductor cluster belt” linking Samsung’s Hwaseong, Pyeongtaek, and Giheung fabs with SK Hynix’s Icheon and Cheongju sites and KAIST-Suwon research facilities, with coordinated infrastructure investment (high-voltage power lines, water treatment, logistics corridors) to support fab expansion.
• Tax incentives for fab construction: In 2023, the government increased the tax credit rate for national strategic technology investments (semiconductors, batteries, displays, vaccines) from 8% (large companies) to 15%, with an additional 10% temporary credit for incremental annual investment, making Korean R&D and capital incentives among the most favorable globally.
• Design ecosystem investment: Funding for fabless chip design startups (through KOVA—Korea Venture Investment), EDA tools research, and university-industry semiconductor IP programs to reduce dependence on U.S.-origin IP (ARM architecture, Cadence/Synopsys EDA tools).

The K-Semiconductor Strategy was carried forward and expanded by the subsequent Yoon Suk-yeol administration (2022–2025) with more explicit geopolitical framing, and continued under Lee Jae-myung’s administration from 2025 onward.

Advanced Packaging and HBM

One of the most strategically significant developments of the 2020s was South Korea’s emergence as the dominant supplier of HBM (High-Bandwidth Memory), a specialized DRAM configuration that stacks multiple DRAM dies vertically using through-silicon vias (TSVs) to achieve very high memory bandwidth at lower power consumption than conventional DRAM. HBM became essential for AI training accelerators, where models like GPT-4 and their successors require sustained memory bandwidth exceeding 2 TB/s.

SK Hynix delivered HBM2E chips to NVIDIA beginning in 2020 and became the sole supplier of HBM3 for NVIDIA’s H100 GPU (launched 2022). By 2024, SK Hynix’s HBM3E commanded 50%+ of the HBM market by value; Samsung was second; Micron was a distant third. HBM represents the memory-chip model’s evolution: it is not commodity DRAM but a specialized, high-value-added product requiring close co-design with GPU makers—a shift toward the product differentiation that critics had long argued Korean chipmakers needed. Government R&D programs (ETRI, KAIST memory labs) contributed foundational TSV and packaging process research that industry commercialized.

AI Policy and Korean LLMs

The Moon and Yoon administrations each announced AI “national strategies.” The Moon administration’s Digital New Deal (2020) dedicated ₩58.2 trillion to AI, data infrastructure, and digital transformation, including funding for Korean AI data repositories (the AI Hub platform, which accumulated over 260 language, image, and specialized datasets for Korean-language AI), government cloud migration, and university AI programs.

The Yoon administration announced the National AI Commission (국가인공지능위원회) in 2023 and committed ₩1.3 trillion ($1 billion) to an AI foundation model development program, distributing grants to Naver, Kakao, Samsung, and university consortia. Naver’s HyperCLOVA (launched 2021) and HyperCLOVA X (launched 2023) became the most capable Korean-language LLMs; Kakao’s KoGPT series offered an open-weight alternative. The government backed these investments as a hedge against dependence on U.S.-origin models (OpenAI’s GPT series, Anthropic’s Claude), particularly for sensitive government and healthcare applications requiring Korean data sovereignty.

The Lee Jae-myung administration (from June 2025) expanded AI governance frameworks. The AI Basic Act (인공지능 기본법; formally the Framework Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence), debated throughout the Yoon period, was passed by the National Assembly in late December 2024 and promulgated in January 2025, with most provisions scheduled to take effect in January 2026. It established a regulatory framework for AI developers, risk-classification requirements for high-impact AI systems, and a national AI safety evaluation body modeled partly on the EU’s AI Office and the U.S. AI Safety Institute (AISI).

5G Leadership and Beyond

South Korea was the first country to commercially launch 5G services at scale, with SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus making 5G available to consumers on April 3, 2019—hours before Verizon’s commercial launch in the United States. By 2023, South Korea had the highest 5G penetration rate among major economies, with over 35 million subscribers representing more than two-thirds of mobile subscriptions. Government 5G policy included:

• Spectrum auctions that prioritized domestic carriers
• Mandatory coverage requirements for subway systems and public buildings
• Subsidies for 5G-enabled “smart factories” through the Intelligent Manufacturing Initiative
• K-Smart City programs that used 5G and IoT infrastructure for urban management (traffic, energy, emergency response) in new development zones at Sejong City and Songdo International Business District

Research on 6G, the next-generation wireless standard, began receiving government funding by 2022. The Ministry of Science and ICT committed ₩200 billion to 6G R&D through 2026, targeting commercial readiness by 2028–2030 and positioning Korean firms (Samsung Networks, Ericsson-Korea JVs, Nokia-KT partnerships) to lead global standards.

Battery and Energy Technology

Parallel to semiconductors, South Korea cultivated a battery industry positioned as a peer to semiconductors in strategic importance. LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI, and SK On became the world’s leading EV battery cell makers. By 2024, Korean firms collectively held approximately 25% of the global EV battery market. The government’s support included:

• Designation of lithium-ion batteries as a “national strategic technology”
• Subsidies for domestic cathode material and separator production to reduce import dependence (most cathode materials come from China)
• Coordinated US–Korea Battery Partnership under the 2022 US Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivized Korean battery makers to build US plants (LG Energy Solution’s plants in Michigan and Ohio, SK On’s Georgia plants, Samsung SDI’s Indiana plants)

Venture Capital and Startup Ecosystem

Evolution from Chaebol Dominance

Historically, South Korea’s startup ecosystem was constrained by chaebol dominance of capital, talent, and distribution channels. Venture capital was introduced systematically in the 1980s–1990s through government-seeded venture capital funds, but remained small until the internet boom. The late 1990s dot-com era produced an early Korean internet generation (including Naver, founded 1999, and Daum, which became Kakao) that demonstrated the possibility of technology entrepreneurship outside the chaebol orbit.

Government policy from the 2000s onward tried to systematically build a venture ecosystem:

• KVIC (Korea Venture Investment Corporation): A government-owned fund-of-funds that co-invests in private venture capital funds. As of 2022, KVIC managed over ₩10 trillion in fund-of-fund commitments, functioning as a backstop for domestic VC.
• Tech Incubation Programs: TIPS (Tech Incubator Program for Startup), launched 2013, provides ₩500 million (~$400,000) in government matching grants for each startup accepted by a private accelerator, with over 1,500 startups funded by 2023.
• K-Startup Grand Challenge: Annual global startup competition offering residency, grants, and Korean market access to foreign founders, designed to internationalize the ecosystem.

By the 2020s, South Korea had produced numerous technology unicorns ($1 billion+ private companies): Krafton (gaming, creators of PUBG), Dunamu (crypto exchange Upbit), Kakao subsidiaries (KakaoPay, KakaoBank), Coupang (e-commerce, listed on NYSE 2021 at $84 billion valuation), Viva Republica (Toss) (fintech). However, most Korean unicorns still operate in consumer internet rather than deep technology, and chaebol relationships remain central to scaling.

Regulation and Tech Governance

Platform Regulation

As Naver, Kakao, and others consolidated market power across search, messaging, maps, e-commerce, and financial services, regulatory scrutiny intensified. The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) and Fair Trade Commission (FTC) have both intervened:

• The FTC fined Naver ₩26.7 billion ($23 million) in 2020 for abusing its search market position to favor its own shopping and video services over competitors
• The FTC launched an investigation into Kakao’s acquisition practices after its 2022 series of platform expansions into delivery, mobility, and financial services created antitrust concerns
• The Online Platform Intermediate Transaction Act (온라인 플랫폼 공정화법), debated across multiple legislative cycles, aimed to impose obligations on dominant platforms regarding algorithm transparency, user data access, and interoperability

Data Protection

The Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA, 개인정보 보호법), originally enacted in 2011 and significantly amended in 2023, governs data collection, processing, and cross-border transfer. The 2023 amendments strengthened requirements for data minimization, mandatory impact assessments for processing involving biometric or health data, and raised maximum fines to 3% of global revenue (aligned with European GDPR-style enforcement). The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), established as an independent agency in 2020, has fined major technology companies including Kakao and Google Korea for PIPA violations.

Semiconductor Export Controls

Following U.S. export control actions (BIS October 2022 rules restricting advanced chip sales to China) and the Japan-Korea semiconductor material dispute (Japanese export controls on EUV photoresists and hydrogen fluoride in 2019, resolved 2023), South Korea established its own export control framework:

• In 2022–2023, the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE) designated specific semiconductor manufacturing processes and equipment categories as “national core technology” requiring government approval for export or M&A transactions involving foreign buyers
• As a longstanding member of the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement, Korea coordinated its export controls with the broader regime while aligning in practice with the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands—the three countries whose firms (ASML, Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, Tokyo Electron) dominate the global semiconductor-equipment supply chain—as they tightened China’s access to advanced chipmaking tools
• Samsung and SK Hynix received one-year (later extended) USDOC licensing exemptions allowing them to continue supplying advanced memory chips to their Chinese facilities, while complying with the broader restriction framework

Challenges and Structural Debates

The Chaebol Concentration Problem

South Korea’s R&D system is heavily dependent on Samsung and SK Hynix. Samsung Electronics alone accounts for approximately 25% of South Korea’s total exports and approximately 20% of total listed-market capitalization. This concentration creates systemic risk: the 2022–2023 semiconductor downturn, which cut Samsung’s semiconductor operating profit by over 95% year-on-year in 2023, immediately impacted the national trade balance and tax revenue. Smaller firms and startups struggle to attract talent away from chaebol compensation packages, and government R&D effectively subsidizes firms that are already globally dominant rather than building alternative champions.

Logic vs. Memory: The Path-Dependency Trap

Samsung’s foundry ambitions represent the key test of whether the developmental state can replicate the memory-chip success in logic (advanced node processors and SoCs). Samsung Foundry has struggled to win advanced logic customers: TSMC retains Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, and Qualcomm for their leading-edge chips, while Samsung’s 3nm yield issues in 2022–2023 raised doubts about its ability to close the gap. The government has funded Samsung Foundry’s R&D through the K-Semiconductor Strategy, but logic-chip design requires a deep ecosystem of EDA tools, IP cores, and specialized libraries that South Korea has not built domestically—remaining dependent on U.S. tool companies (Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor/Siemens) and U.K.-based IP provider ARM.

Talent Attrition

Despite high engineer salaries at chaebols, South Korea experiences significant talent outflow. Researchers emigrate to U.S. universities and Silicon Valley companies; skilled engineers depart for better pay and work culture at American and Taiwanese companies. China’s aggressive recruitment of Korean semiconductor engineers became a national security concern: between 2015 and 2023, South Korean prosecutors brought multiple cases of trade secret theft, alleging that Chinese firms (including the DRAM maker CXMT and the NAND-flash maker Yangtze Memory Technologies, YMTC) had recruited Korean engineers to transfer advanced process knowhow. A 2023 government study estimated that semiconductor technology theft had cost Korean companies hundreds of billions of won in potential lost revenue.

The Geopolitical Squeeze

South Korea’s semiconductor industry spans the U.S.–China divide in ways that create structural vulnerability. Samsung’s Chinese factories in Xian and Suzhou produce NAND flash chips using tools that could be subject to U.S. export control restrictions; SK Hynix’s Wuxi factory produces DRAM chips for the Chinese market. China represents approximately 40% of global semiconductor consumption. The U.S. CHIPS Act (2022) and export control rules push Korean companies to invest in U.S. domestic production while restricting their Chinese operations—a costly bifurcation. The Taiwan Strait military risk (potential Chinese action against Taiwan) poses an existential threat to TSMC’s foundry operations, which would simultaneously devastate Samsung’s logic competition and create opportunities for Samsung Foundry, depending on the scale and duration of any disruption.

Contemporary Policy Directions (2025–2026)

The Lee Jae-myung administration (inaugurated June 10, 2025) inherited the K-Semiconductor Strategy framework and has continued major structural investments while shifting emphasis toward:

• AI sovereignty: Accelerated implementation of the AI Basic Act; increased funding for Korean-language AI development; establishment of a sovereign AI computing cluster (government-owned GPU cluster) at a Daejeon national research center to provide compute access to university researchers and SMEs locked out of U.S.-origin cloud AI services
• Supply chain resilience: Continued battery materials localization (cathode, anode, separator domestic production targets); acceleration of domestic semiconductor equipment industry development (Wonik IPS, KC Tech, Jusung Engineering as government-supported equipment makers)
• Talent retention: Expanded exemptions from military conscription for engineers working in national strategic technology sectors; enhanced government-funded fellowship programs to retain Korean researchers at domestic universities; bilateral research visas with U.S. and European institutions
• Climate-tech integration: Hybrid semiconductor-cleantech strategy linking Korean battery, solar, and hydrogen technology to the chip industry (sharing materials science and manufacturing process knowledge); goal of meeting 30% of industrial electricity demand from renewables by 2030, critical for ensuring Samsung’s and SK Hynix’s ability to comply with customer sustainability requirements

The developmental-state model—though less explicitly dirigiste than in the Park Chung-hee era—remains foundational. South Korea continues to use strategic subsidies, coordinated research programs, targeted tax policy, and diplomatic alignment to steer its technology sector in ways that pure market competition would not produce.

---

Related

• Semiconductors and Technology Leadership — The memory-chip industry and Samsung/SK Hynix’s global dominance, direct products of this policy framework, including the HBM supply chain for AI.
• Technology Sector and ICT Innovation — The broader tech ecosystem beyond semiconductors: displays, AI, 5G, autonomous vehicles, gaming, webtoons, and the Naver/Kakao platform economy.
• Chaebol (Korean Conglomerates) — The family conglomerates that execute government R&D policy, receive subsidies, and concentrate national R&D investment.
• Park Chung-hee — Founder of the developmental-state model and the strategic industrial policy approach; his five-year plans created the institutional scaffolding still in use.
• Yoon Suk-yeol — The 2022–2025 president who expanded K-Semiconductor Strategy with geopolitical framing, deepened US–Japan technology alignment, and whose martial-law crisis ended his presidency in April 2025.
• Government Structure of South Korea — The administrative and constitutional framework for implementing tech policy through the Ministry of Science and ICT, MOTIE, and development banks.
• Seoul — The metropolitan region where Pangyo Techno Valley, Mapo Digital Media City, and the leading startup and VC ecosystem operate.
• Military and Defense Policy — Defense-industrial R&D, KAI, and the KF-21 program as an arm of the technology strategy.
• Energy and Resources Policy — R&D in nuclear SMRs, batteries, and the hydrogen economy.