SK Hynix Breaks Ground on $4 Billion Indiana AI Memory Facility

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix broke ground on a more than $4 billion advanced packaging facility for artificial intelligence memory in Indiana on Thursday, marking a major step in its plan to establish a key U.S. production base for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips critical to AI computing. The ceremony at Purdue University in West Lafayette launched the company's first U.S. hub for next-generation HBM, with volume production of its latest HBM4E chips targeted for the third quarter of 2029.

The 133.5-acre plant is scheduled to open its cleanroom in the second half of 2028. Once fully operational, the facility is expected to employ about 1,000 people and create roughly 7,000 direct and indirect jobs through construction, operations, and related industries. SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung stated the site will eventually reach an annual capacity of hundreds of thousands of wafers. The products will be "made-in-USA" HBM chips, though the advanced wafers will be produced in South Korea and shipped to Indiana for packaging and testing before being supplied to major U.S. customers like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet's Google.

The project is supported by the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act....