Dive Brief:
- SK Hynix plans to build a $3.87 billion advanced chip packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, the company announced Wednesday.
- The new facility, which SK Hynix has been teasing since last month, will create more than 1,000 new jobs. The plant will make advanced packaging specific to AI products, the chipmaker’s first investment of its kind in the U.S.
- The 430,000-square-foot plant will be located at a Purdue University research park, with production slated to begin in the second half of 2028.
Dive Insight:
SK Hynix’s Purdue facility will manufacture high-bandwidth memory chips, a critical component of graphic processing units that train AI systems such as ChatGPT, the company said in its release.
The company will collaborate with Purdue University and Ivy Tech Community College on workforce development and training programs.
The state’s economic development agency is providing up to $3 million in training grants, $3 million in manufacturing readiness grants and and up to $80 million in conditional performance payments. It also offered up to $554.7 million in tax rebates, according to the state’s press release.
The nearly $4 billion Indiana investment is still only a sliver of what SK Hynix’s parent company SK Group has pledged to invest in the U.S.
In July 2022, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won noted that the chipmaker planned to invest $22 billion in the U.S., and in August 2023 the company said it would invest $52 billion in U.S. operations by 2030. SK Group and its subsidiaries have begun on these expansion plans, including with a $5 billion battery factory with Hyundai in Georgia and joint venture battery plants with Ford in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Abroad, SK Hynix has been working to build a chip fab cluster site in Korea. The company plans to break ground on the first fab in March of next year.
Purdue University has been investing heavily in its semiconductor and smart manufacturing workforce development initiatives, forging deals with key players in the space. In February, the school announced a partnership with software giant Dassault Systèmes to build student workforce training courses using technologies like virtual twins, simulation and augmented reality.
Purdue University and Belgium-based technological innovation organization Imec also opened a research and development hub on the campus in December.
