SK Hynix has turned its June expansion blueprint into hard approvals, with the board clearing roughly 54 trillion Korean won ($38B) for two new memory fabs in South Korea.
The money splits as 35.2 trillion Korean won for the Y2 fab in Yongin, which will make HBM and next-generation DRAM, and 19.1 trillion Korean won for the M17 plant in Cheongju, dedicated to NAND flash. Y2 is the second of four fabs planned for the Yongin cluster, breaking ground in July 2027 with a first cleanroom targeted for June 2029. M17 starts sooner, in February, and should open its first cleanroom in December 2028.
The decision follows June’s master plan for 600 trillion Korean won of investment in the Yongin cluster and 100 trillion Korean won in Cheongju, which the WSJ says could eventually total 700 trillion Korean won across both sites. SK Hynix cited Omdia projections that DRAM and NAND demand will grow 19 percent annually through 2030.
As the main HBM supplier to NVIDIA, SK Hynix has posted record quarters during the AI memory boom. The new fabs protect that lead against Samsung and Micron and ease a NAND shortage that has pushed prices sharply higher.
The scale also deepens an industry-wide squeeze on fab tool supply, as Korea, Japan and the US build capacity at the same time.
