Indiana Governor Mike Brown, SK Hynix CEO Kwak No-jung, and other officials gathered at Purdue University to signal the groundbreaking of SK Hynix’s advanced packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, on August 27, 2026.
Alex Bedoya | CNBC
South Korean memory maker SK Hynix, which has emerged as one of the biggest winners of the AI boom, is strengthening its U.S. presence with a new factory in Indiana, which CEO Kwak No-jeong says will make the state “an important HBM production base in the U.S.” by 2030.
Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for SK Hynix’s first U.S. facility in West Lafayette on Thursday, Kwak emphasized the need for high-bandwidth memory, which is facing a severe global shortage due to the insatiable demand for artificial intelligence.
“We will provide our customers with a new source of U.S.-made HBMs, strengthen the U.S. semiconductor supply chain, and contribute to national and economic security,” Kwak said.
SK Hynix is the HBM market share leader and is building a $720 billion expansion drive for additional production, with much of that expansion taking place in its home country, where the company is building the world’s largest memory fab campus. Production there is scheduled to begin in February.
The $4 billion Indiana factory will be used for packaging rather than front-end manufacturing. That is, it is where memory chips are stacked and connected. The chips will be manufactured in South Korea and China, with some shipped to Indiana. Kwak said Thursday that the first clean room where packaging will take place is scheduled to open in October 2028.
Packaging is a key step in chip manufacturing, but in July, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick called on SK Hynix and archrival Samsung to build front-end chip factories in the United States.
Kwak said SK Hynix is looking for suitable opportunities and is “open to any site and any country.” He also said, “SK Hynix will continue to expand its investment and cooperation in the United States.”
“First of its kind”
SK Hynix, which is listed on the Korea Exchange, listed its shares on the Nasdaq in July, raising $26.5 billion, the most for a foreign company in the U.S. market. The stock price remains slightly below the closing price on the first day, and is exposed to fluctuations in AI trade and the Korean market as a whole.
Still, SK Hynix’s market capitalization has increased about seven times over the past year, topping $1 trillion.
Choi Tae-won, CEO of affiliated company SK Group, said in an interview with CNBC in July that SK Hynix had been considering potential locations for more than a month.
“We’d be happy to do that, but the problem is we really have to find the right location,” he said.
On August 26, 2026, SK Hynix’s first U.S. facility, a memory packaging factory in West Lafayette, Indiana, was unveiled to CNBC.
Alex Bedoya | CNBC
SK Hynix began construction in April in Indiana. Thursday’s ceremony marked the official kickoff of what Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Brown described as “the largest development project in Indiana history” and “the first of its kind in the nation.”
“For too long, the United States has designed many of the world’s most advanced chips while moving much of its manufacturing ecosystem overseas,” Indiana Sen. Todd Young, also a Republican, said Thursday, citing a commitment to domestic manufacturing. “Breaking ground here today is proof that that vision is becoming a reality.”
Kwak said SK Hynix’s total investments and assets in the United States are expected to exceed $45 billion by 2030. This includes the $10 billion AI Company launched in January and Solidigm, a subsidiary created when SK Hynix acquired Intel’s NAND business for $9 billion in 2020.
To support the new plant in Indiana, the company is receiving up to $458 million in federal CHIPS Act funding and up to $712 million in state incentives, the second largest in state history, according to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.
The 133-acre site, to be announced in 2024, will include a packaging factory and research and development center where top AI customers can collaborate with SK Hynix on memory development. This opportunity is expanding as SK Hynix works to develop next-generation memory chips that can be custom built along with the AI accelerators that house them.
Leading AI chipmaker Nvidia has committed to co-developing memory with SK Hynix as part of a $500 billion deal with SK Group announced in July.
SK Hynix told CNBC that the Indiana facility will create approximately 1,000 direct jobs and an additional 6,000 jobs related to construction and business partners.
SK Hynix said it will temporarily bring in employees from South Korea during the early stages of the project, but expects long-term roles with U.S. employees, including students from nearby Purdue University who are earning various degrees focused on semiconductors.
“In 167 years at Purdue University, there has never been a better day than today,” Mitch Daniels, Purdue’s interim president and former Indiana governor, said Thursday.
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