As the so-called ‘chipflation’ driven by a surge in memory semiconductor prices accelerates, the government has unveiled measures to ease the burden of purchasing digital devices for ordinary households.

At the ‘Livelihood Prices Special Management Ministerial Task Force (TF) meeting’ held on the 9th, the government reviewed trends in PC and laptop prices and finalized a response direction focused on expanding the recycling of public PCs and strengthening support for vulnerable groups.

The government expects that as the semiconductor industry concentrates on producing high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the upward trend in commodity DRAM prices will continue for a considerable period. In fact, prices for some PCs and laptops from major manufacturers rose by more than 10% in seven months, and the consumer price inflation rate for computers surged to 12.4% in March after 10.8% in February.

In response, the government decided to greatly expand the share of recycling for out-of-service PCs at public institutions. The plan is to correct the practice of discarding usable equipment without clear standards and put it toward resolving the ‘digital divide’.

The government found that, among the 22,000 PCs discarded from state agencies after being classified as out of service last year, more than half could be put to immediate use for basic administrative tasks after only simple repairs and maintenance. Until now, utilization of out-of-service PCs of the central government has been low because disposal criteria such as sale, transfer, or discard were ambiguous; going forward, this will be shifted to a ‘no-cost transfer’ approach and prioritized for allocation to the welfare programs of local governments.

Local governments will refurbish the devices handed over from the central government and deliver them to vulnerable groups through existing support programs such as Love Green PC and the AI Digital Learning Center. The recycling targets are limited to desktops. Laptops and tablets are excluded, based on the judgment that their effectiveness is low due to battery performance degradation as they age.

Support for students from vulnerable groups will also be strengthened. The government decided to expand the program this year to support the purchase of PCs and laptops for students in low-income households.

If the supplementary budget bill is finalized, the plan is to enable metropolitan and provincial offices of education to provide support by utilizing the 4.8 trillion KRW increase in local education finance grants. Reflecting the recent price increases, the per-person subsidy amount will also be raised from the current 1,042,000 KRW.