Chey Tae-won says SK hynix will double wafer production capacity within five years [COMPUTEX Taipei 2026]

【The Financial News, Taipei, Taiwan=Jung Won-il, Choi Hye-rim】 SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said he plans to double SK hynix's total wafer production capacity within the next five years. The move reflects his view that memory shortages will persist through 2030 as artificial intelligence spreads. He also reaffirmed his close ties with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, whom he has met several times this year, saying, "Our relationship is based on friendship and partnership."
■ "Doubling wafer production capacity"
Speaking to reporters at the SK hynix booth at COMPUTEX Taipei 2026 on the 2nd, Chey said, "We plan to double our overall production capacity over the next five years," adding, "There will be many obstacles, but we will overcome them." When asked what he meant by doubling capacity, he said, "The capacity expansion I mentioned refers to total wafer output," and added, "We will double our wafer production capacity."
The plan appears to be based on expectations that the memory supply shortage driven by the spread of AI will last for a long time. Referring to his earlier forecast that the memory shortage would continue through 2030, Chey said, "I still hold the same view," and explained, "The more caching is needed, the more memory is required. Global companies are making massive investments in AI data centers, and with AI PCs also emerging, memory demand is only increasing."
He also stressed, "Equipment prices, construction costs, land prices, water prices, and electricity prices will all rise, so I do not know the exact amount. But we have to produce, and in the end, we will do it. That is our attitude right now."
He also expressed confidence in cooperation with NVIDIA. Asked whether SK hynix would continue to play a key supplier role for NVIDIA's next-generation AI computing platform, Vera Rubin, which has entered mass production, Chey said, "That depends on the customer's decision, but we have been a major supplier, and I hope we can continue to be one."
On the roadmap for HBM4E, the next-generation high-bandwidth memory product, he said, "Whenever the customer is ready, we must be ready too, and we will be ready," adding, "The roadmap depends entirely on the customer." He then added, "There is currently only one HBM4E customer." This was effectively a reference to NVIDIA and underscored the importance of cooperation between the two companies in the AI memory market. Chey also said of his relationship with Huang, "We share a friendship built on mutual trust and reliance," and added, "We will keep our partnership strong and move forward together for a very long time."
■ "I want to take on the challenge of an AI Factory"
As a future business direction, Chey proposed building an AI Factory beyond memory. "We are producing memory chips for AI, but I want to challenge myself to figure out how to build an AI Factory," he said. "In the future, we will need many AI factories capable of producing more intelligence, and I believe that will help all of humanity."
He also mentioned the challenges SK hynix must address to expand capacity. "The bottlenecks are not caused only by funding, energy, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), or memory chips," Chey said. "Only those who secure all of these can actually build." He added, "We know there is a memory shortage, but building a new fab takes a long lead time. These days, a new fab takes at least three years to build, and if you start from bare ground, it takes more than five years."
one1@fnnews.com