[New York = E-Daily Correspondent Seong Joowon ] SK hynix is pouring $720 billion (approximately 1,023 trillion won) into building the world’s largest memory semiconductor production network. CNBC, which was the first media outlet to capture footage of SK hynix’s Yongin semiconductor cluster, reported on the 13th (local time) that production at the site will begin in February of next year.

“As Tall as a 50-Story Building”… A Head-on Battle Against the Memory Market’s Boom-and-Bust Cycle

The first fab at the Yongin Cluster, which CNBC visited, had its walls about halfway up, but upon completion, it is expected to reach the height of a 50-story apartment building. Unlike the single-story, sprawling structures of Taiwan’s TSMC or Intel’s Arizona plant, the Yongin fab features a design where six cleanrooms are interconnected across multiple floors, according to CNBC. It added that the massive allocation of DRAM capacity to High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM—a type of memory created by stacking DRAM chips to enable rapid data exchange with AI semiconductors) is putting pressure on the supply of memory for consumer electronics, and that AI companies are entering into long-term contracts spanning several years in the memory market, where short-term contracts were previously the norm.
SK hynix’s market capitalization has surged more than fivefold in the past year, surpassing $1 trillion. According to Counterpoint Research, as of the first quarter, SK hynix(000660)held the top spot in the HBM market with a 58% share, followed by SamsungElectronics(005930)and U.S.-based Micron, each with 21%.
Raised

37 Trillion Won on Nasdaq… Stock Price Plunges 21% in a Month

SK hynix raised $26.5 billion (approximately 37.65 trillion won) last month by listing on the Nasdaq via American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). This marks the largest-ever IPO by a foreign company on the U.S. stock market. However, after peaking at around $195 on the 14th of last month, the stock price fell by about 21% to close at $154.41 on the 12th. This is attributed to a combination of increased volatility across AI-related stocks and a correction in the Korean stock market. SamsungElectronics and SK hynix together account for about half of the KOSPI’s market capitalization.
Nevertheless, the company states that its large-scale expansion plans remain unchanged. As part of the national plan announced by President Lee Jae-myung last June to “double memory production capacity within five years,” SamsungElectronics is moving forward with the construction of a new mega-fab, along with a semiconductor support package worth at least $22 billion.

Chey Tae-won: “This Is a War”… NVIDIA: “Make More”

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said in an interview with CNBC,

“It

’s like

a war,”

adding, “Everyone wants to buy memory chips. Without them, you can’t make AI computing systems or AI chips.” He noted, “Prices have risen too quickly,” and added, “We’re doing our best

.”

SK hynix previously announced that it had signed 10 long-term supply contracts with major clients last July. NVIDIA recently announced that it had “secured a stable supply of HBM” and signed a $50 billion deal with SK Group that includes the joint development of next-generation memory; the agreement also covers the construction of the “ SKTelecom(017670)” and data centers by 2027. Chairman Choi even showed CNBC a wafer on which NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang had personally written the message, “Please make more.” He noted that he frequently meets with Big Tech leaders such as Satya Nadella of Microsoft (MS), Sundar Pichai of Google, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, and that CEO Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su also recently visited South Korea for discussions on memory.
Hwang Min-seok, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, said, “Every major tech company you can name is coming to Korea to sign contracts,” adding that hotels near the SK hynix and SamsungElectronics fabs are fully booked.

China Is the Wild Card… Site for New U.S. Plant “Still Being Sought”

Although SK hynix operates three fabs in China, sales of its cutting-edge HBM are prohibited there due to U.S. export controls. China is nurturing its own memory companies, such as Changxin Memory Technology (CXMT), and CXMT recently made a spectacular debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Director Hwang said, “China is now our competitor,” adding, “This will be a far more dangerous competition than anything else in the world.”
The race to expand capacity is also in full swing in the U.S. Micron is investing $50 billion to build two new fabs in Boise, Idaho, with the first wafer production scheduled for 2027. A $100 billion campus with up to four fabs is also under construction in Clay, New York. SK hynix is investing $4 billion to build its first U.S. production facility in West Lafayette, Indiana; however, this facility is dedicated exclusively to packaging (the back-end process of stacking and wiring memory chips) rather than front-end manufacturing, and is scheduled for completion in 2028. In addition, the company has existing U.S. operations, including Solidigm—a Sacramento-based subsidiary formed after acquiring Intel’s NAND business for $9 billion in 2020—and the $10 billion “AI Company,” which was reorganized and launched this past January.
Regarding the site for a front-end semiconductor fab in the U.S., Chairman Choi said, “We have been reviewing various candidate sites for over a month,” adding, “We have the will to do it, but the challenge is finding the right site.”
He noted that the memory industry is currently at an “inflection point” and predicted that the shift toward custom HBM—designed in tandem with AI semiconductors—will be the next technological leap forward. He explained that this trend is accelerating, centered on the next-generation HBM5. “Both NVIDIA and Google want their own customized HBM,” he said, adding, “Memory chips are no longer just a commodity; their very status is changing.”