U.S. efforts to become a dominant force in the chipmaking industry could be propelled by a planned $4 billion advanced chip-packaging facility in Indiana.
SK Hynix, a South Korean semiconductor company, reportedly plans to invest billions to build a facility in West Lafayette, Ind., sources told the Wall Street Journal. The facility, which could begin operating in 2028 and create up to 1,000 jobs, would be supported partly by both state and federal tax incentives, according to the sources. The chipmaker’s board is expected to vote on the decision to build the facility at an undetermined time.
SK Hynix “is reviewing its advanced chip packaging investment in the U.S., but hasn’t made a final decision yet,” a company spokeswoman told the Journal. SK Hynix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company has a partnership with chipmaking leader Nvidia to supply it with high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which, combined with Nvidia’s graphic-processor units (GPUs), power leading generative AI models including ChatGPT. Even SK Hynix’s rival, Samsung, is reportedly adopting the same chipmaking technology to produce HBM chips, although Samsung said in a statement shared with Quartz it does not have plans to adopt the same technology SK Hynix uses to produce its HBMs.
Earlier this year, SK Hynix’s chief executive Kwak Noh-jung said the AI boom could drive the chipmaker’s valuation to 200 trillion won, or $148.8 billion, the Journal reported. In the past year, its market cap has increased more than two-fold to about 129 trillion won or $96 billion.
Meanwhile, American semiconductor pioneer Intel recently received $8.5 billion in direct government funding from the CHIPS and Science Act — an effort by U.S. president Joe Biden’s administration to advance U.S. chipmaking amid rising demand from the AI industry and competition with China.