SK Hynix to invest nearly $13 billion in chip packaging plant in South Korea

South Korea's ‍SK Hynix said on Tuesday it has decided to ⁠invest 19 trillion won ($12.90 billion) to build an advanced chip packaging plant in South Korea to ‌meet rising ‌memory chip demand related to artificial intelligence.

The chipmaker ‌said in a statement that the construction of the new factory will begin in April, with completion targeted by the end of ​next year.

SK Hynix said accelerating global competition in AI is driving ‌a ‍sharp rise in demand for ‍AI-focused memory, underscoring the need to respond ‌proactively to growing demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips.


HBM - a type of dynamic random access memory or DRAM standard first produced in 2013 - involves stacking chips vertically to save space and ‍reduce power consumption, helping to process the large volumes of data ‍generated by ⁠complex ⁠AI applications.

SK Hynix, the main HBM supplier to Nvidia, was the leading player in the HBM market last year, with a 61% share, followed by Samsung Electronics at 19% and Micron at 20%, data from Macquarie Equity Research showed.