SK Hynix is evaluating locations across Japan for a potential memory chip manufacturing facility, a move aimed at meeting explosive demand driven by artificial intelligence while keeping production costs in check.<\/p>\n
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won confirmed the search during meetings between South Korean and Japanese business leaders in Sendai, telling Bloomberg News that the company is casting a wide net. “We are looking all over Japan,” he said. “Anywhere with good power and good water.”<\/p>\n
Chey declined to identify potential partners or specific sites under consideration. A person familiar with the matter said SK Hynix could also pursue small-scale acquisitions of Japanese companies, and that the structure of any collaboration, whether co-investment or a joint venture, would depend on the partner and the products involved.<\/p>\n
The company already holds a roughly 14% stake in Kioxia Holdings, the Japanese flash memory maker, through an investment vehicle operated by Bain Capital. Last week, SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung said the company is carefully reviewing ways to jointly develop the NAND flash market with customers and partners.<\/p>\n
The Japan exploration fits into a broader global expansion strategy. SK Hynix announced last week that it will begin volume production of next-generation HBM4E chips at its Indiana facility in the third quarter of 2029. That project is valued at more than $4 billion and will deepen the company’s footprint in the U.S. market.<\/p>\n
Kwak has also warned that the current memory shortage is expected to persist through 2030, underscoring the urgency behind the company’s capacity expansion plans.<\/p>\n
Market Position and Competitive Landscape<\/p>\n
SK Hynix dominates the high-bandwidth memory segment that has become critical for AI accelerators. According to Counterpoint Research, the company captured 58% of global HBM revenue in the first quarter of 2026, compared with 21% each for Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology.<\/p>\n
The competitive pressure is intensifying. In July, Micron began construction on a $9.3 billion expansion of a DRAM plant in Japan that will mass-produce cutting-edge semiconductors for AI and other applications, signaling that rivals are also moving aggressively to secure Japanese manufacturing capacity.<\/p>\n
Chey, who also chairs the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, framed the broader context at an event preceding the annual meeting of Korean and Japanese business leaders, which focused on declining labor populations in both countries. “Now is the time for Korea and Japan to form an economic bloc,” he said.<\/p>\n
Share Performance<\/p>\n
SK Hynix’s Seoul-listed shares have surged 157.14% so far in 2026 and 522.3% over the past year, reflecting investor enthusiasm for the company’s AI-driven growth. The stock closed 1.27% higher on Monday at 16.74 million won ($1,223.86).<\/p>\n
Its Nasdaq-listed American depositary receipts, which began trading in July, have fallen 4.15% since listing. The ADRs closed 0.35% lower on Friday at $161.04 and edged down another 0.02% in early pre-market trading on Monday.<\/p>\n
Benzinga Edge rankings place SK Hynix’s ADRs in the 58th percentile for Value and the 98th percentile for Growth, highlighting the market’s focus on the company’s expansion trajectory rather than current valuation metrics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SK Hynix is evaluating locations across Japan for a potential memory chip manufacturing facility, a move aimed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[5229,2589,11446,14611,10351,3534,276,241,240,275],"class_list":["post-138523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk-hynix","tag-bain-capital","tag-chey-tae-won","tag-counterpoint-research","tag-kioxia-holdings","tag-kwak-noh-jung","tag-micron-technology","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk","tag-sk-group","tag-sk-hynix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}