SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won smiles broadly as SK hynix’s American Depositary Receipt (ADR) opened at $170, higher than its offering price of $149, during a press briefing with correspondents held at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Manhattan, New York, on the 10th (local time). New York — Yoon Kyung-hwan Correspondent
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said on the 10th that “the semiconductor industry now clearly does not move on the same cycle as before,” adding that “right now the gap between demand and supply is enormously large, and in terms of growth pace, demand is outstripping supply.”
Chey held a briefing with Korean correspondents at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Manhattan, New York, where he made the remarks. “The artificial intelligence (AI) we see now is only at the level of a 4-to-5-year-old child, so to reach artificial general intelligence (AGI, AI that learns, reasons, and solves problems on its own like humans), it must learn an enormous amount of information, and the storage medium for that can only be memory chips,” he stressed. The comment signals that even as memory chip performance improves, demand growth is overwhelming supply, prompting an aggressive expansion of production facilities.
Regarding the U.S. push for investment in America, Chey stressed that “to build a memory chip fab (production plant), various requirements must be met, including electricity, clean water, and large sites of land.” He said, “If there is a location that meets those conditions, I will not care whether it is in the United States or anywhere else in the world.” He kept his distance, however, adding that “we can review it, but our position is not that we will definitely do it.”
Meeting reporters to mark the successful listing of SK hynix’s (000660.KS) American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on the Nasdaq market, Chey also hinted at a plan to conduct a par-value split of the common shares listed on Korea’s KOSPI market. “If the chief financial officer (CFO) requests it, of course we will do it,” he said.
On the pursuit by China’s semiconductor industry, Chey stressed, “By the time you feel threatened, it is already too late,” adding, “We need to move a bit faster and also expand our portfolio of AI technologies.”