Abstract:
According to people familiar with the matter, South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix is negotiating with Intel on a potential cooperation. If a deal is finally reached, SK Hynix will produce memory chips in the United States for the first time. The two parties are still in the exploratory stage and have not yet made a final decision.
Informed sources said that one plan currently being discussed is for SK Hynix to lease some of Intel's chip manufacturing facilities in Ohio and use the related capacity to produce memory chips. Another option is to establish a joint venture between SK Hynix, Intel and large cloud computing companies that want to ensure the supply of memory chips.
It is unclear what type of memory chips SK Hynix will produce in Ohio if the cooperation is reached. SK Hynix's current products cover DRAM, NAND flash memory and high-bandwidth memory HBM for artificial intelligence processors, among which HBM has become an indispensable key storage device in AI data centers.
In recent years, as investment in artificial intelligence and data centers continues to grow, global memory chip supply has become tight. In particular, the demand for HBM is increasing rapidly, and manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron are continuing to expand production capacity. At the same time, a large amount of traditional memory chip production capacity has also been diverted to more profitable AI-related products, causing other types of memory to also face supply pressure.
For Intel, if it can introduce SK Hynix to participate in the Ohio project, it will help alleviate the long-term funding and production capacity pressure faced by the project. Intel has previously promised to continue to promote the construction of its Ohio chip manufacturing base, but the project progress has been delayed many times, and production is currently not expected to begin until 2030 and 2031 at the earliest.
Intel announced the construction of a large-scale chip manufacturing park in Ohio in 2022. It initially planned to invest tens of billions of dollars and hoped to build it into one of the world's largest advanced semiconductor manufacturing bases. However, due to changes in the semiconductor market environment, the company's own financial pressure and construction schedule adjustments, the project's production time has been significantly later than originally planned.
If SK Hynix participates, Intel can gain new partners, and SK Hynix will be able to leverage existing U.S. advanced manufacturing infrastructure to further expand its production capabilities in the United States. For both parties, the collaboration could also reduce the time and capital costs of building a new factory separately.
The U.S. government has been promoting the reshoring of semiconductor manufacturing in recent years, hoping to reduce the dependence of key chip supply chains on Asia. With the rapid expansion of the artificial intelligence industry, the United States not only hopes to produce advanced logic chips locally, but is also increasingly concerned about the supply of memory chips.
US Commerce Secretary Lutnick has previously threatened that if South Korean and Taiwanese chip companies do not increase domestic production capacity in the United States, the United States may impose tariffs of up to 100% on related companies. Against this background, if SK Hynix produces memory chips in the United States for the first time, it will be an important step for South Korean semiconductor companies to expand their manufacturing footprint in the United States.
However, this potential cooperation also faces resistance from South Korea. The South Korean government has been requiring SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics to speed up the construction of a new semiconductor industry cluster in southwestern South Korea in recent years. Therefore, if SK Hynix transfers some of its advanced memory chip production to the United States, how to balance U.S. investment and South Korea's local industrial layout will become an important issue.
It is particularly noteworthy that if technologies such as HBM or advanced DRAM are involved in the future, the Korean government may further review relevant arrangements. South Korea has a large number of key semiconductor technologies that are subject to national industrial technology protection regulations, and overseas transfers involving national core technologies may need to be evaluated by regulatory authorities.
South Korea’s trade department stated that specific investment decisions will be made by SK Hynix on its own, but if the project involves important protected industrial technologies, it may need to be reviewed under South Korea’s Industrial Technology Protection Act.
SK hynix has significantly expanded its U.S. business in recent years. This year, the company is building an advanced packaging factory in Indiana, investing more than US$4 billion in the project, and plans to start mass production of the next generation HBM4E in the third quarter of 2029. The factory will become an important part of SK hynix's U.S. HBM supply chain in the future.
SK Hynix previously stated that it hopes to gradually establish a complete U.S. advanced storage supply chain. Its Indiana project will form a synergy with local manufacturing facilities in South Korea. Some advanced wafers will be produced in South Korea and shipped to the United States for packaging and testing before being supplied to U.S. customers.
If this cooperation with Intel is finally implemented, SK Hynix's business in the United States will further extend from packaging and testing to chip manufacturing. This will make its domestic production system in the United States more complete and help meet the growing storage needs of American AI data centers.
At the same time, large cloud computing companies may become important players in potential cooperation. People familiar with the matter said that some cloud service companies hope to lock in the supply of memory chips in advance by participating in joint ventures and other methods. As the scale of AI data center construction continues to expand, these enterprises require a large number of HBM and other high-performance storage products, so ensuring long-term supply has become an important part of their infrastructure expansion.
For SK Hynix, building a factory in the United States can also bring it closer to large customers such as Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google and their AI infrastructure projects. SK hynix is currently one of the world's major HBM suppliers, and its HBM products are widely used in artificial intelligence accelerators.
However, the current discussions between SK Hynix and Intel are still in the early stages. The two parties have not yet determined the final cooperation model, nor have they announced the specific investment amount, production schedule or chip product type. People familiar with the matter emphasized that no plan has been finalized and SK Hynix may also consider other cooperation structures.
If an agreement is finally reached, this will be the first time that SK Hynix manufactures memory chips in the United States, and it may also become a new model for Intel to revitalize its manufacturing base in Ohio. As the AI industry continues to drive growth in global storage demand, this potential cooperation will also become an important case for observing the localization of US semiconductors and changes in the global AI storage supply chain.
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