SK Hynix in Talks With Intel to Make Memory Chips in the US for the First Time

The most important shortage in the artificial intelligence boom isn't graphics processors. It's memory — and on Wednesday, the industry's biggest memory maker took a step toward solving it on American soil. South Korea's SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about a deal that would see it manufacture memory chips in the United States for the first time, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the discussions.

The exclusive, reported from Seoul and Washington by Heekyong Yang, Alexandra Alper, and Hyunjoo Jin, lands at the intersection of three of the biggest forces in technology: an acute global shortage of the memory chips that AI data centres devour, Intel's halting attempt to reinvent itself as a contract manufacturer, and the Trump administration's relentless pressure on chipmakers to build in America. Intel shares surged 5.2 percent in premarket trading on the news; SK Hynix stock finished 4.1 percent higher in Seoul.

Details of how such a deal might be structured are being reported for the first time — and if the talks succeed, the result would put Korean memory technology inside one of the most politically significant chip projects in the United States.

File photo: a semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Newport. SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about manufacturing memory chips in the United States for the first time — potentially at Intel's Ohio campus. (Photo: Robin Drayton via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Two ways the deal could work

According to the three sources, the discussions center on two potential structures. Under one scenario, SK Hynix would lease part of Intel's long-planned chipmaking facility in Ohio — the $20 billion "mega-site" in New Albany, Licking County, where Intel is building two leading-edge fabs on a 1,000-acre campus with room for as many as eight. Under another scenario, described by two of the people, SK Hynix could form a venture with Intel and major cloud firms that are keen to lock in memory chip supplies.

One of the sources stressed that the talks are exploratory and that no decisions have been made, adding that SK Hynix might also consider other ways to structure a deal. Reuters was not able to learn what types of chips SK Hynix might manufacture in Ohio if an agreement is struck — a significant unknown, because the answer determines everything from the technology that would cross the Pacific to the political reaction in Seoul.

The companies' public responses were carefully noncommittal. An Intel spokesperson said the company does not comment on speculation, but added: "However, Intel is committed to Ohio, and we continue with our investments to accelerate the site readiness." SK Hynix said it "is exploring various options to strengthen its global competitiveness, but no specific plans or arrangements have been finalized at this time," adding: "Nothing has been finalized regarding cooperation with any specific companies mentioned in the article or memory chip production in the United States."

Why now: memory is the new bottleneck

To understand why this matters, start with what SK Hynix actually makes. Its product lineup includes DRAM — dynamic random-access memory, the working memory in servers, PCs, and smartphones — and NAND flash, the long-term storage memory in solid-state drives. Most critically, it is the leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, the stacked-memory technology used in AI processing units. Every Nvidia AI accelerator that powers a frontier model is paired with HBM; without it, the world's most advanced chips are just expensive paperweights.

And HBM is in acutely short supply. The relentless build-out of AI data centres has turned memory — long a cyclical, commoditised business — into a strategic choke point. Cloud giants are competing not just for GPUs but for the memory stacks that feed them, and lead times have stretched as demand outruns the industry's ability to add capacity. That is the context for the second deal structure in the Reuters report: a venture that would let major cloud firms lock in supplies directly. As Citrini Research analyst Jukan Choe put it in a post on X, more important than any Intel–SK Hynix partnership itself is the potential for the pair to enter joint ventures with hyperscalers — the companies writing the biggest checks in the AI economy.

The shortage also explains the timing of SK Hynix's interest in American manufacturing. Building memory capacity in the United States would put the world's leading HBM maker closer to its largest customers — the US cloud giants and Nvidia — while insulating supply chains that currently run almost entirely through South Korea. It is the memory industry's version of a logic-chip trend already years underway: after decades of concentration in East Asia, the geography of chipmaking is being redrawn.

A lifeline for Intel — and a win for Washington

For Intel, the talks could hardly come at a more consequential moment. The company has been struggling through a painful reinvention under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, whose strategy hinges on Intel Foundry — the contract-manufacturing business — winning marquee outside customers. Landing SK Hynix, one of the world's great chipmakers, as a tenant or partner at the Ohio site would be a powerful proof point that the foundry model can work. As a CNBC summary of the Reuters report noted, a deal "would be a big win for Intel, which has been looking to gain marquee customers for its manufacturing, or foundry business, which is a key pillar of CEO Lip-Bu Tan's strategy."

The Ohio project itself is the physical embodiment of America's chipmaking ambitions. Announced in January 2022 as a $20 billion investment — the largest single private-sector investment in Ohio's history — the New Albany campus is expected to create 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent positions at the facilities. President Joe Biden attended the September 2022 groundbreaking. Intel says the 1,000-acre mega-site has room for up to eight fabs, which would require a $100 billion investment to fully build and equip.

But the project has also become a symbol of Intel's troubles: a flagship delayed and re-scoped as the company's finances deteriorated. The Trump administration has responded with direct intervention — the US government took a 10 percent stake in Intel in August 2025, and Morningstar notes Intel's shares have more than quadrupled since that investment. Against that backdrop, Reuters' framing is blunt: a deal "would mark a big win for the Trump administration, which has been ramping up pressure on chipmakers to build in the United States." A Korean memory giant manufacturing on US soil, at a site Washington has already bet on, is exactly the kind of announcement the White House wants.

The Seoul hurdle

There is, however, a significant obstacle — and it sits in Seoul, not Ohio. All three sources told Reuters that any agreement to produce advanced memory such as HBM, or even DRAM, could run into opposition from the South Korean government, which considers those technologies sensitive. The sources declined to be identified because the information is not public.

The sensitivity is real. Memory technology is one of South Korea's crown-jewel industries — SK Hynix and Samsung dominate global supply — and Seoul has grown increasingly protective of technologies it views as critical to national economic security. Transferring advanced memory manufacturing to the United States would raise questions about technology leakage, about the hollowing out of Korea's industrial base, and about who ultimately controls the intellectual property at the heart of the AI supply chain. These are the same anxieties that have shaped Washington's own export controls; they cut both ways.

That history also includes a precedent worth noting: this would not be the two companies' first entanglement. In 2022, Intel sold its NAND memory and solid-state-drive business — including a NAND flash plant in Dalian, China — to SK Hynix for $9 billion, as Intel streamlined its balance sheet to focus on its core operations and the foundry push. The deal made SK Hynix a far larger force in NAND. A new Ohio arrangement would, in a sense, reverse the direction of travel: instead of Intel exiting memory, Intel would host it.

There is also recent history of rumor and denial around exactly this site. In July, Korea's JoongAng Ilbo reported that SK Hynix was buying Intel's Ohio facilities for memory production — a claim the company swiftly refuted in a Korea Exchange filing, stating there was "no fact" that it was pursuing or had decided to acquire Intel's Ohio site and fab, while acknowledging it continuously reviews investment and acquisition opportunities. The Reuters report describes something different and more nuanced than an acquisition — a lease or a joint venture — which may explain why talks that were denied in one form are now being reported in another.

What it means for the AI build-out

Step back, and the SK Hynix–Intel talks are a window into where the AI infrastructure race is heading. The first phase of the boom was about compute — who could buy the most GPUs. The emerging second phase is about everything around the GPUs: the power, the data centres, and above all the memory. An AI accelerator without HBM is incomplete, and HBM supply is concentrated in essentially two companies in one country. Diversifying that — geographically, and into structures that give cloud giants direct access to supply — is now a strategic priority for the entire industry. It is the same infrastructure build-out whose market power and political fallout we examined here: the AI spending spree that has powered a historic market rally while making data centres and chip plants central battlegrounds in Washington.

For the United States, the stakes are straightforward. The CHIPS Act era was built on the premise that leading-edge logic — the processors — must be made on American soil. Memory was always the quieter half of that equation, and the harder one: the economics of DRAM have historically punished everyone except the lowest-cost producers. If SK Hynix does begin manufacturing memory in Ohio, it would mark the moment the onshoring project expanded from brains to memory — from the chips that think to the chips that remember.

None of it is done. The talks are exploratory, the structure undecided, the chip types unknown, and Seoul's view unresolved. But markets have already rendered their verdict on the direction of travel: Intel up more than 5 percent before the bell, SK Hynix up 4 percent in Seoul. In an industry where supply is destiny, the prospect of the world's leading AI memory maker building in America is the kind of news investors don't wait to believe.

Sources: Reuters exclusive (Sept. 16, 2026 — full text via Euronext; corroborated by Livemint, KWSN, Morningstar/Dow Jones, CNBC syndication); ENR on Intel Ohio groundbreaking; TechXplore/AP on Ohio project announcement; WCCFTech and TheStreet on the July 2026 denial; TechPulse USA reporting.