SK hynix invests $15.1B to build first fab plant at Yongin semiconductor cluster

SK hynix is set to make an additional 21.6 trillion won ($15.1 billon) investment in building the first fabrication plant at its semiconductor cluster in Yongin, Gyeonggi. The decision was made at a board meeting on Wednesday.

A view of construction site of the Yongin semiconductor cluster industrial complex in Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Jan. 20 [YONHAP]

SK hynix is set to make an additional 21.6 trillion won ($15.1 billon) investment in building the first fabrication plant at its semiconductor cluster in Yongin, Gyeonggi. The decision was made at a board meeting on Wednesday.

The move is widely seen as an effort to speed up construction as the company seeks to stay ahead of surging demand for AI chips and strengthen its grip on the global market.

The company previously decided in July 2024 to invest 9.4 trillion won to build initial infrastructure for the first fab and related facilities. With the latest decision, total facility investment for the first fab at the Yongin cluster is expected to rise to around 31 trillion won.

Yet that massive sum is just a fraction of the full cost of bringing the fab fully online. Each fab is to include six cleanrooms, and filling them with advanced semiconductor equipment is projected to require an additional 120 trillion won.

That means fully operating the first fab would cost an estimated 150 trillion won in total when combining construction costs and equipment spending.

SK hynix's Yongin semiconductor campus in Gyeonggi is under construction, which is scheduled to be completed in the first half of 2027. [SK HYNIX]

SK hynix plans to build four cutting-edge fabs on a 1.97 million-square-meter (487-acre) site within the Yongin semiconductor cluster general industrial complex, and the overall investment is estimated at 600 trillion won.

After breaking ground on the first fab in February 2025, SK hynix has stepped up construction to advance completion and operations ahead of its original 2027 schedule.

The semiconductor industry views the large-scale investment as a move to keep pace with rising demand for advanced AI memory, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM). The first fab is expected to produce HBM as well as next-generation DRAM.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY YI WOO-LIM [kim.minyoung5@joongang.co.kr]