SK Hynix holds groundbreaking ceremony for $4 billion Indiana AI chip packaging facility

TrendForce projects memory (DRAM/NAND) will account for 68% of cloud hardware spending by 2027, up from 47% in 2023. NVIDIA plans a 15% price hike for AI servers in 2027, citing memory cost increases. High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) demand is driving supply shifts and price surges, with major suppliers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron benefiting. NVIDIA's price increase is justified by memory's growing share of server costs, impacting cloud providers' budgets.

SK Hynix began construction on a $4B memory packaging plant in Indiana, its first U.S. base, with production starting in late 2029. The plant, supported by U.S. CHIPS Act funding, will employ about 1,000 people and focus on high-bandwidth memory packaging. Meanwhile, Intel canceled a similar plant in Europe last year.

SK hynix began a $3.87B project in Indiana to produce HBM, with mass production starting in 2029. The facility will process DRAM wafers for high-performance memory used in AI accelerators. The US government will provide $458M in funding and $500M in loans under the CHIPS Act. The project is expected to create 7,000 jobs.

SK Hynix plans to start volume production of HBM4E chips at its Indiana facility in Q3 2029, with annual capacity reaching hundreds of thousands of wafers. The $4B project aims to meet AI-driven demand and serve customers like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google. The company expects Indiana to become a key U.S. HBM production base by 2030, with the facility also housing an AI semiconductor R&D center. SK Hynix held 58% of the global HBM market in Q1 2026, according to Counterpoint Research.

Nvidia reported strong earnings, citing memory as a bottleneck. It expects gross margins to compress to 71-72% due to higher memory costs, benefiting memory makers like SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron. Memory stocks rallied, with SK Hynix up 2.49%, Samsung up 1.72%, Kioxia up 5.00%, and SanDisk down 1.54%. Moody's upgraded SanDisk to Ba1, citing strong revenue growth prospects.

The KOSPI index initially rallied due to Nvidia's strong earnings, but gains were tempered after the Bank of Korea raised interest rates. The index closed at 6,912.37, up 1.53%. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix also rose. Analysts expect market volatility to persist amid economic concerns.