The company said on Thursday that commercial production of the advanced high-bandwidth memory chips is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2029, while Chief Executive Officer Kwak Noh-Jung forecast that the Indiana operation could eventually reach an annual capacity of hundreds of thousands of wafers.
The more than $4 billion investment underscores the growing strategic importance of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, to the global technology industry as companies race to expand artificial intelligence computing capacity.
SK Hynix is seeking to move more of its advanced memory production closer to major US customers, including Nvidia, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google, which are among the companies investing heavily in AI infrastructure and data centres.
Kwak said the company had yet to see clear indications of a downturn in the memory market and expected any eventual weakening to amount to a moderation in demand rather than a sharp decline.
He also expressed confidence in the longer-term outlook, saying he was not concerned about market conditions beyond 2030.
Indiana poised to become major HBM hub
SK Hynix expects its Indiana operation to emerge as one of its key HBM production bases in the United States by 2030.
The facility, located at Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, is scheduled to begin cleanroom operations in the second half of 2028, according to Kwak.
A cleanroom is a tightly controlled manufacturing environment designed to prevent dust and microscopic contaminants from interfering with the highly sensitive semiconductor production process.
The Indiana complex will include a next-generation HBM packaging line as well as an artificial intelligence semiconductor research and development facility.
Kwak said the company’s ambition went beyond establishing another manufacturing site, as SK Hynix sought to build an advanced memory supply chain within the United States.
The investment is also expected to strengthen the company’s ability to respond to growing demand from US technology companies while contributing to efforts to make semiconductor supply chains more resilient.
HBM becomes central to AI expansion
HBM is a specialised memory technology in which semiconductor chips are stacked vertically to enable extremely fast data transfer while consuming less power.
The technology is particularly valuable in AI systems because advanced processors must handle enormous amounts of data at high speeds.
Unlike conventional memory products, HBM is closely integrated with AI processors, making its manufacture more technically complex and creating higher barriers to entry.
That complexity has given leading HBM manufacturers greater pricing power and made the technology one of the most important growth drivers for the memory-chip industry following the sector’s recent downturn.
SK Hynix currently holds a commanding position in the market.
Counterpoint Research estimates that the company accounted for 58 per cent of global HBM revenue in the first quarter of 2026, significantly ahead of Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology, which each held 21 per cent.
Race to build AI data centres
The strong outlook for HBM is closely tied to the global race to build increasingly powerful data centres capable of running AI applications.
Nvidia, one of SK Hynix’s major customers, forecast on Wednesday that its revenue would jump 70 per cent in the next fiscal year.
The projection reinforced expectations that spending on AI computing infrastructure remains strong and helped reassure investors about the durability of the current AI investment boom.
For SK Hynix, the continued expansion of AI data centres translates directly into greater demand for advanced memory products.
Kwak’s assessment that there were few signs of an imminent reversal in the memory cycle further suggests that the company expects HBM demand to remain resilient in the near term.
US support for semiconductor expansion
The Indiana project is also part of a wider US effort to attract semiconductor manufacturing and strengthen domestic supply chains.
SK Hynix expects the facility and associated supply-chain investments to create about 7,000 direct and indirect jobs locally.
The company received significant backing from the US government, which finalised $458 million in grants and up to $500 million in loans for the project under the CHIPS Act in December 2024.
The federal support reflects Washington’s broader push to increase semiconductor production in the United States and reduce vulnerabilities in global chip supply chains.
For SK Hynix, establishing a major advanced-memory operation in Indiana could also provide a strategic foothold in one of the world’s largest technology markets.
Billions more earmarked for expansion
The company’s US investment forms part of a much larger global expansion programme.
Earlier this month, SK Hynix’s board approved approximately 54.3 trillion won ($38.3 billion) in investments through 2031.
Of that amount, about 35.2 trillion won has been allocated to the second phase of construction of its chip fabrication plants in South Korea.
The scale of the planned spending reflects the semiconductor industry’s expectations that AI will continue to drive demand for computing power, memory and advanced packaging.
As technology companies race to expand data-centre capacity, SK Hynix is positioning HBM as a critical component of the AI hardware supply chain.
With production in Indiana expected to begin in 2029, the company is betting that the demand for faster, more energy-efficient memory will remain strong well into the next decade.