Nvidia supplier SK Hynix to build $6.8 billion chip plant in South Korea

Memory chip giant SK Hynix on Friday said it plans to invest 9.4 trillion Korean won ($6.8 billion) to build a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in an emerging chip hub in South Korea.

The fabrication plant — or fab — will be built in South Korea’s Yongin Semiconductor Cluster just south of the country’s capital of Seoul, where the government is looking to build a massive complex of chip operations.

This will be SK Hynix’s first manufacturing plant in the cluster, with construction slated to begin in March next year and to complete the project in May 2027.

South Korea’s SK Hynix is one of the world’s top three makers of memory chips, which go into everything from laptops to servers. More recently, the company has had success with its high-bandwidth memory, which it supplies to Nvidia.

Earlier this year, SK Hynix committed 120 trillion won to build 4 fabs in the Yongin cluster. The remaining three will be set up at a later date.

The aggressive investment underscores both SK Hynix and the South Korean government’s push to maintain the country’s lead in the area of memory, which is important to artificial intelligence applications. Seoul has committed billions of dollars in support of its forays in semiconductors — a technology that has increasingly been seen as strategic to governments.

South Korea is also home to Samsung, the world’s biggest memory chip maker.

SK Hynix has been riding the AI wave and its partnership with Nvidia, this week reporting that second-quarter profit came in at its highest level in six years.