SK Hynix is doing something no major South Korean memory chipmaker has done before: seriously considering a large-scale manufacturing facility on Japanese soil. CEO Kwak Noh-jung disclosed the company’s exploration of deeper collaborations within Japan’s semiconductor sector in late August, with a potential fab in Miyagi Prefecture designed to ramp up production of high-bandwidth memory and NAND chips for AI workloads.
The investment could reach tens of trillions of won. To put that in perspective, SK Hynix just approved approximately 54 trillion won, roughly $39 billion, for new DRAM and NAND fabs back home in South Korea.
Why Japan, why now
Japan houses many of the world’s most critical suppliers of advanced materials and equipment used in chip manufacturing. There’s also the matter of government subsidies. Japan has been aggressively courting semiconductor manufacturers with generous financial incentives as part of its broader strategy to rebuild domestic chip production capacity. Micron announced an investment of roughly $10 billion in a Hiroshima expansion for HBM and AI memory in July 2026, with the Japanese government backing the project with up to 500 billion yen.
SK Hynix appears eager to tap into a similar well of support. Internal reviews of the Miyagi site are currently underway, and expectations are that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won will visit the location personally.
