SK Hynix Wants to Build Memory Chips in America, and Intel Has an Empty Factory Waiting

By Omar aka Crypt0 · Sep 17, 2026

The most consequential AI deal reported this week is about none of the usual suspects: it is about memory. On September 16, Reuters reported that South Korea's SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about manufacturing memory chips on American soil for the first time, a move that would put the world's leading supplier of high bandwidth memory inside the American chipmaking footprint.

The shape of the talks tells you how serious the memory squeeze has become. Under one scenario, SK Hynix would lease part of Intel's long planned chipmaking campus in Ohio, a giant site that has been waiting for enough demand to justify its scale. Under another, the two would form a joint venture with major cloud providers, the hyperscalers who are desperate to lock in memory supplies for their AI buildouts. Three people familiar with the discussions described the talks as exploratory, with decisions still ahead and other structures still possible.

There is a delicious symmetry in the pairing. Intel sold its NAND memory business to SK Hynix in a 9 billion dollar deal years ago; now the buyer of Intel's old memory business may move into an Intel campus to make memory in America. Intel's stock jumped 5.2 percent in premarket trading on the news, while SK Hynix shares finished 4.1 percent higher in Seoul. Markets read the logic instantly: Intel has the empty factory, SK Hynix has the memory the world is fighting over.

And the world is fighting over it. SK Hynix is the leading supplier of high bandwidth memory, the specialized DRAM stacked beside AI accelerators that determines how fast they can actually think. Its product line spans the DRAM in servers, PCs, and smartphones, NAND flash for long term storage, and the HBM that AI processors depend on to run at all. As AI infrastructure spending devours memory supply, consumer devices are feeling the pinch: Apple reportedly agreed in February to pay Samsung twice as much for iPhone 17 memory, and analyst Ming Chi Kuo says Apple is trimming 2026 hardware shipment plans over DRAM shortages, with the Mac Studio, Mac mini, and MacBook Air all affected.

The geopolitics are as layered as the chips. The Trump administration has been pressing chipmakers to build in the United States, floating broader semiconductor tariffs in January while offering relief to companies investing domestically. SK Group chairman Chey Tae won signaled support for American factories in July, and SK Hynix listed its American depositary receipts on Nasdaq the same month. But Seoul could object: advanced memory like HBM and even DRAM counts as sensitive technology in South Korea, and the sources say that opposition is a real hurdle.

SK Hynix already has one American project underway, a 4 billion dollar advanced packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, that broke ground last month with mass production targeted for the second half of 2029. That plant will package DRAM wafers made in South Korea into finished HBM; an Ohio deal would bring actual wafer fabrication to American soil for the first time. For readers tracking the AI buildout, the lesson is simple: the GPU gets the keynote, and the memory decides who ships. Whoever secures HBM supply secures the AI decade.

Sources

New to crypto? Read the crypto glossary, browse frequent questions, read our story, or explore the story archive.