SK hynix board approves $38B investment to build two facilities for DRAM and NAND chips
The chipmaker will invest in plants in Yongin, Gyeonggi, and Cheongju, North Chungcheong, as part of a mid- to long-term plan announced in June.
The semiconductor cluster under construction in Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Jan. 7, 2025
WOO SANG-JO
The board of SK hynix approved a combined investment worth 54 trillion won ($38 billion) on Friday to build two new factories to produce both dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and NAND Flash chips amid soaring demand for AI memory.
The spending is part of the mid- to long-term investment plan of 1.1 quadrillion won announced in June, which allotted 600 trillion won in Yongin, Gyeonggi, 100 trillion won in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, and 400 trillion won for the southwestern region without stating a specific time frame.
In the latest decision, the board assigned 35.2 trillion won for the second factory, Y2, in the large chip complex in Yongin and 19.1 trillion won for the M17 fab in Cheongju.
"The decision follows Chairman Chey Tae-won's push to fast-track fab expansions in Yongin and Cheongju," said a spokesperson at SK hynix.
"Development of the planned southwestern semiconductor cluster will proceed more gradually, with site selection and other preparatory work taking place over a longer timeline," he said.
The new Yongin facility will primarily cover DRAM products, while the Cheongju fab will produce NAND flash chips as the site is originally designed for that chip range.
Construction for the Y2 factory is scheduled to begin in July of next year, with its first clean room set to open in June 2029. The facility will have a total floor area of 1.12 million square meters (12.1 million square feet) and produce next-generation DRAM, including high bandwidth memory (HBM).
Y1, which is currently under construction, is scheduled to begin operating its first clean room in February of next year.
SK hynix has moved up the target completion date for the Yongin cluster by 12 years, from 2045 to 2033. Construction of Y2 will proceed in line with the accelerated schedule, and investments will be made in phases through October 2031.
M17, the NAND production facility to be built in Cheongju, is intended to expand the supply of enterprise solid-state drives for AI data centers. The company expects storage demand for AI inference to increase and NAND applications to continue expanding with the adoption of agentic AI and physical AI.
M17 will have a total floor area of 660,000 square meters. Construction is scheduled to begin in February of next year, with its first clean room set to open in December 2028.
“This investment is a decision aimed at ensuring we do not miss opportunities as the market grows,” an SK hynix representative said. “By proactively securing production capacity, we will establish ourselves as a key AI infrastructure partner that contributes to the stability of the global AI semiconductor supply chain.”
BY LEE YOUNG-KEUN, PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
