[Edaily Reporter JAEMIN SONG ] SK hynix is investing a total of 54 trillion won in Yongin and Cheongju to build new semiconductor fabs in response to rising memory demand in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). In Yongin, the company will establish a production base for next-generation DRAM, including High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), while in Cheongju, it will build a NAND production base to meet demand for enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs) used in AI data centers.

SK hynix announced on the 7th that it held a board meeting and decided to invest 35.2 trillion won in “Y2,” the second fab in the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster in Gyeonggi Province, and 19.1 trillion won in the new “M17” fab in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.

This investment is a follow-up to the mid- to long-term investment strategy announced last June. SK hynix plans to invest 600 trillion won in the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster and 100 trillion won in expanding its Cheongju production base. Construction of the first fab, Y1, is currently underway in Yongin.

According to market research firm Omdia, global demand for DRAM and NAND is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 19% each from last year through 2030. SK hynix believes that as AI expands from training to inference, as well as agentic and physical AI, memory is establishing itself as the core infrastructure that determines AI performance.

Yongin Y2 is the second production facility in the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, which will house a total of four fabs. With a total floor area of 341,000 pyeong, construction is scheduled to begin in July of next year, and the first cleanroom is set to open in June 2029. The facility will produce next-generation DRAM, including HBM, and investment will be carried out in phases through October 2031.

SK hynix plans to complete the construction of all four fabs by 2033, bringing forward the completion date of the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster—originally scheduled for 2045—by 12 years. Construction is currently underway at Y1, with the goal of opening its first cleanroom in February of next year. The first-phase power and water infrastructure required for Y2’s operation is currently 99% complete.

The Cheongju M17 facility, a NAND production plant with a total floor area of 206,000 pyeong, will break ground in February of next year. The first cleanroom is scheduled to open in December 2028, and investment will continue through April 2031. The company explains that rapid construction is possible because the site can be integrated with existing NAND production facilities—M11, M12, and M15—and the land, power, and water infrastructure are already in place.

The scope of NAND applications is expanding as demand for eSSDs grows due to the proliferation of AI services, and demand for “KV cache”—which stores previous computation results during the AI inference process—is also increasing. SK hynix plans to build the factory first, but will proceed with cleanroom expansions and equipment deployment in phases based on customer demand.

An SK hynix official stated, “This investment is a decision made to keep pace with the market’s growth and ensure we do not miss out on opportunities,” adding, “By proactively securing a production base, we will contribute to the stability of the global AI semiconductor supply chain.”