AI Demand Explodes: SK Group Chairman Plans to Double Wafer Capacity in 5 Years

Central News Agency (Taipei) June 2 - Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, the parent company of South Korean memory giant SK Hynix, stated today that SK Hynix plans to double its wafer production capacity within the next five years. According to Reuters, Chey is attending the Taipei International Computer Show (Computex), an event that has attracted executives from many of the world's top technology companies, including US AI chip giant Nvidia. Driven by AI demand, SK Hynix is at the heart of the industry's boom. Chey told reporters, "We plan to double our overall production capacity in the next five years... Although we face many obstacles and difficulties, we will find ways to overcome them and continue to expand." In addition, Chey reiterated his view that memory supply bottlenecks could persist until 2030, maintaining the forecast he first made in March this year. SK Hynix is a major supplier of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips to Nvidia, which are critical for AI applications. As memory manufacturers scramble to capture the rapidly growing AI infrastructure market, competition in the HBM market is also intensifying. According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, SK Hynix's global HBM market share in the first quarter of this year was 58%, followed by Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology. Chey said that Nvidia's upcoming AI PC architecture will require a large amount of memory, which will help support long-term demand growth. He also noted that he hopes SK Hynix will become a key HBM supplier for Nvidia's advanced Vera Rubin system.