Exclusive: SK hynix in talks to buy Intel’s Ohio chip campus for U.S. memory production
The deal would let the Korean chip giant meet Washington's demands for U.S.-based production while giving cash-strapped Intel a lifeline for its struggling foundry business.
An aerial view from February 2025 shows construction progress at Intel's Ohio One campus, where Intel planned to invest more than $28 billion for the construction of two new leading-edge chip factories. Located in New Albany, Ohio, the site has been under continuous construction since 2022. Shown in this photo are the fabs as they go vertical, along with the concrete placement and basement walls of the front office building.INTEL CORPORATION
SK hynix is negotiating with Intel to acquire the U.S. tech company's massive Ohio semiconductor campus, aiming to begin front-end memory chip production there within five years, according to information exclusively obtained by the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday.
The Korean chip giant is reportedly in the midst of an internal review and government approval process related to the purchase. The acquisition price and timeline are still being coordinated.
The deal would let SK hynix meet Washington's demands for U.S.-based production while giving cash-strapped Intel a lifeline for its struggling foundry business.
Intel broke ground on the semiconductor campus in 2022 in New Albany, Ohio, as its first new manufacturing facility in 40 years. The company has since completed major foundational work, including concrete pouring and steel framing. The mega-complex spans approximately 4.05 million square meters, or roughly 1,000 acres — large enough to accommodate eight semiconductor plants. Intel estimated that fully developing the site with all the plants would cost approximately $100 billion.
Intel initially said it would invest about $28 billion in the site's first phase, complete two next-generation chip plants — Fab 27 and Fab 28 — by 2025 and hire 3,000 engineers to produce cutting-edge semiconductors, all of which was heavily reliant on federal backing. Then-President Joe Biden attended the September 2022 groundbreaking ceremony, where he touted the CHIPS and Science Act — a federal law providing subsidies to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing — in bolstering the U.S. chip industry.
But Intel's foundry business has since struggled to secure customers, hampered by yield problems and delays on its advanced manufacturing nodes, as major U.S. tech companies, including Nvidia, Apple and AMD, have turned to Taiwan's TSMC for chip manufacturing. Facing financial strain, it announced large-scale layoffs and investment cuts last year and pushed back the Ohio plant's operational timeline to between 2030 and 2031.
Then-President Joe Biden speaks during the groundbreaking for a new Intel computer chip facility in New Albany, Ohio, on Sep. 9, 2022.AP/YONHAP
Its prospective deal with SK hynix reflects aligned interests between the two tech giants.
For Intel, selling the long-idle Ohio campus would provide liquidity and a foundation to restructure its foundry business. Intel's foundry division posted a $2.2 billion loss last year and lost another $2.4 billion in the first quarter of this year. Intel recently hired former SK hynix CEO Lee Seok-hee as executive vice president overseeing its foundry division, part of an effort to strengthen back-end capabilities such as yield improvement.
For SK hynix, the deal offers a way to meet Washington's investment demands while acquiring a mostly-built site.
The Trump administration has pressed Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to expand their U.S. investments as the United States continues to seek its own domestic semiconductor production and reshape supply chains around it.
That pressure has produced some results. Samsung Electronics is building an advanced foundry and research and development facility in Taylor, Texas, with an investment of about $37 billion, and expects to begin operations next year. SK hynix is building a high-bandwidth memory packaging facility in Indiana with an investment of about $3.87 billion, targeting operations by 2028.
Pressure from Washington for additional investment continued, however. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, speaking at a Micron plant event in New York on July 10, said he wanted to bring Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to the United States to build production facilities.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who also heads the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), speaks during a press briefing at the KCCI Jeju Forum at the Shilla Jeju hotel on July 15, where he said SK hynix is considering building a semiconductor plant in the United States.KOREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
Industry observers interpreted Lutnick's remarks as a call for Korean chipmakers to build not just foundry and packaging operations in the United States, but front-end memory manufacturing, including DRAM production.
"The U.S. is moving to build a fully self-contained AI semiconductor supply chain that keeps design, foundry, memory and packaging all within its own borders," business professor Kim Dae-jong of Sejong University said.
At a Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry forum on Jeju Island on July 15, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said that "the price of memory chips is currently abnormally high and supply needs to increase to bring prices down." On the same day, he unveiled that SK is looking for "locations in the United States to build semiconductor plants […] quickly."
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
