SK Hynix will increase capital spending by about 50 percent this year to at least 45 trillion won, or 31 billion dollars, as it races to expand production of AI memory chips. The South Korean memory maker says long-term customer demand remains strong and expects supply to stay tight well into the next decade.
The higher capex will fund capacity for next-generation high-bandwidth memory and other advanced memory technologies used in AI accelerators. SK Hynix expects to begin volume shipments of HBM4E to key customer Nvidia in 2027 while increasing output in the second half of this year. Executives said long-term supply agreements provide confidence to continue expanding manufacturing capacity.
The annual investment increase forms part of a government-backed expansion strategy announced together with Samsung Electronics in June. The two companies pledged about 2.1 trillion dollars for semiconductor investments through 2040, including a new chip cluster in southwest South Korea and accelerated construction of fabs in Yongin. The plan aims to roughly double the country’s memory production capacity within five years.
Separately, logic manufacturers TSMC and Intel have also announced capex hikes.
