SEOUL — South Korean chip giant SK hynix said on Tuesday it would spend 19 trillion won ($12.9 billion) building an advanced chip packaging plant as the firm rides a global artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
SK hynix is one of the world’s leading memory chipmakers, manufacturing chips essential for AI products and the data centers that the fast-evolving industry relies on.
“As global competition in AI accelerates, demand for memory used in AI is surging worldwide,” the company said.
“SK hynix has decided to make a new investment in an advanced packaging fab,” it said.
“The importance of preemptively responding to rising HBM (high-bandwidth memory) demand is critical,” it added.
The company is a supplier to the US giant Nvidia and remains one of the biggest manufacturers of the product.
Last month, SK hynix said it was considering a US stock market listing using treasury shares as part of efforts to boost shareholder value.
The company’s shares have traded at record highs in recent days on hopes that global demand for semiconductors will surge on a boom in artificial intelligence.
South Korea’s government has said it will triple spending on AI this year as it hopes to propel the country into the ranks of the world’s top three AI powers alongside the United States and China.
