SK Group chairman Choi Tae-won said the company is considering building a new
memory-chip fab in Japan and may pursue joint production with Kioxia, the
Japanese NAND flash maker in which SK Hynix holds a stake. He said SK would be
willing to partner if SK Hynix can be included in Kioxia’s future strategic plan
and identified joint production, R&D and shared supply chains as possible
cooperation areas, adding that SK would end its investment in Kioxia if no form
of cooperation can be established. Citing booming AI-driven data-center demand,
Choi said there is a 20–30% shortfall in data-center storage semiconductors and
called Japan—with its concentration of equipment, materials and parts
suppliers—an attractive candidate for overseas capacity on risk and cultural
grounds.
