{"slug": "sk-chief-warns-ai-memory-shortage-could-turn-geopolitical", "title": "SK chief warns AI memory shortage could turn geopolitical", "summary": "SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won warned that the global shortage of AI memory chips could escalate into geopolitical conflict as foreign governments begin intervening to secure supply for their industries. He urged SK hynix to accelerate capacity expansion, describing current memory prices as \"abnormal\" and warning that sustained high prices would invite new competitors and geopolitical retaliation. Chey noted that customers have requested 60-100% more AI memory by 2027, but supply is not keeping pace, with no meaningful new capacity coming online next year.", "body_md": "Chey Tae-won expects memory demand to far exceed supply through 2027 despite capacity expansion\n\nSK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said the global shortage of AI memory chips is severe enough that foreign governments have started intervening on behalf of their own industries, and warned that Seoul is likely to face similar pressure.\n\nHe separately argued that SK hynix needs to accelerate capacity expansion at home and abroad, describing today's memory prices as \"abnormal\" and warning that sustained high prices would invite new competitors and geopolitical retaliation.\n\n\"Building where we can, as fast as we can, has almost become the lifeline of Korea's semiconductor industry,\" Chey said at a press briefing on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Jeju Forum, which he chairs.\n\nChey said customers have asked SK hynix for 60 to 100 percent more AI memory in 2027 than this year. Given AI now accounts for more than half of overall semiconductor consumption, he put total demand growth at a minimum of 50 to 60 percent. Supply is not keeping pace. \"No company has meaningful new capacity coming online next year,\" he said.\n\nThe imbalance is most acute in high-bandwidth memory, the stacked DRAM that pairs with Nvidia's AI accelerators. SK hynix held 58 percent of the global HBM market by revenue in the first quarter of 2026, according to Counterpoint Research, well ahead of Micron and Samsung at 21 percent each. Industry demand for HBM has repeatedly outpaced supplier guidance over the past two years.\n\nThat imbalance, Chey said, is now producing what he called \"near-chaotic lobbying,\" and not only from corporate customers. Foreign governments have begun treating memory access as a matter of \"economic security.\"\n\n\"Right now, companies absorb the pressure. Governments will start pressuring other governments soon.\"\n\nChey framed SK hynix's own expansion in different terms. Sustained high prices, he argued, would ultimately hurt Korean chipmakers themselves. They would push PC and smartphone makers into what he called \"chipflation,\" pull in new entrants attracted by the margins, and invite the kind of geopolitical retaliation other Asian exporters have faced before.\n\nHe cited Tesla CEO Elon Musk's stated interest in chip manufacturing as an early sign of that pull.\n\n\"Prices have to normalize,\" Chey said. \"Otherwise, the market shrinks and competitors flood in.\"\n\nThe company is already accelerating at home. SK hynix pulled the first clean room at its Yongin cluster forward to February 2027 from May and committed an additional 21.6 trillion won ($14.52 billion) in March of this year. It is also converting its Cheongju M15X plant into a dedicated DRAM base for high-bandwidth memory. A larger long-term expansion into the country's southwest, jointly planned with Samsung Electronics, will be sited at the Gwangju military airfield.\n\nOn top of that, SK hynix is now reviewing candidate fab sites worldwide by speed, scale, and the readiness of power, water and land. US locations are under consideration, Chey said, examined on their own merits rather than as a concession to any particular US demand.\n\nHe was dismissive when asked specifically about US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's continued push for Korean chipmakers to invest stateside. Lutnick \"has been this way\" since the early Trump administration, Chey said. \"The question is always the same: how much will you invest in the US, how much will you reshore. This time isn't different.\"\n\nThe company's only confirmed US footprint remains a $3.87 billion HBM advanced packaging and R&D facility in Indiana announced in April 2024, which handles back-end work rather than wafer fabrication.\n\nmjh@heraldcorp.com", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-chief-warns-ai-memory-shortage-could-turn-geopolitical", "canonical_source": "https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10812835", "published_at": "2026-07-19 08:05:58+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-19 08:25:27.805852+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-chips", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy", "ai-products"], "entities": ["SK Group", "Chey Tae-won", "SK hynix", "Nvidia", "Micron", "Samsung", "Counterpoint Research", "Tesla"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-chief-warns-ai-memory-shortage-could-turn-geopolitical", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-chief-warns-ai-memory-shortage-could-turn-geopolitical.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-chief-warns-ai-memory-shortage-could-turn-geopolitical.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sk-chief-warns-ai-memory-shortage-could-turn-geopolitical.jsonld"}}