Posted on : 2026-08-28 17:09 KST Modified on : 2026-08-28 17:09 KSTThe plant in Indiana will have the capacity to process “hundreds of thousands” of wafers annually starting in late 2029, SK Hynix’s CEO said
SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s HBM production hub in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Aug. 27, 2026. (Kim Won-chul/Hankyoreh)
For the first time, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — a component crucial to the AI industry — will be produced in the US by a Korean company. SK Hynix is investing over US$4 billion to construct an HBM packaging base that will produce hundreds of thousands of wafers each year. The production of HBM made in the US is expected to begin in earnest in the second half of 2029. On Thursday, SK Hynix held the groundbreaking ceremony for the next-generation HBM advanced packaging plant at Purdue University’s Holloway Gymnasium in West Lafayette, Indiana. This is the first SK Hynix plant to be built in the US. Its cleanroom is expected to open by October 2028, with production of next-generation HBM to begin the following year. Along with production lines, an advanced packaging R&D test bed will be established, which will develop next-generation packaging techniques, produce prototypes, and verify performance. SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung noted during his speech at the ceremony that the Indiana fab was “the first advanced packaging facility to be built in the US,” and declared the company’s plan to start production of next-generation HBM from the third quarter of 2029 and secure the capacity to process hundreds of thousands of wafers annually. DRAM wafers produced in Korea will be shipped to the US, where they will be stacked, packaged, and tested before being made into HBM. Those chips will then be supplied to US customers, thereby completing a collaborative production system between the US and Korea. “Today marks the day when the US and SK Hynix embark on a new future of AI together,” Kwak declared. “The Indiana fab will become a gateway to deliver the first Made-in-USA HBM products.” Kwak also noted that, in the future, SK Hynix will expand investments and collaboration in the US.
