Samsung accelerates Yongin chip plant to 2029 as AI memory boom reshapes Korea's semiconductor race

Samsung pulls its first Yongin chip plant forward to 2029

The opening of the first of six fabs at the Yongin cluster moves up by one to two years, as AI chip demand rewrites Korea's construction calendar Samsung Electronics is moving to begin operations at the first chip plant in its Yongin cluster in 2029, one to two years earlier than planned, industry sources told Yonhap. The pull-forward lands inside a national build-out that already carries an $880bn commitment to chips, data centres and robots, and it follows a year in which every Korean memory maker has been trying to buy back time. The site in question is the Yongin National Industrial Complex, just south of Seoul, a designated national strategic project meant to serve as Samsung's next-generation manufacturing hub. Six fabs are planned there in total, and the first had been scheduled to come online in 2030 or 2031. The accelerated timeline follows the government's own decision to speed up development of the complex. Land, power and water provisioning have been the pacing items at Yongin since the cluster was announced, and none of them are things a chipmaker can solve on its own. "An earlier start of operations at the first plant will enable Samsung to respond more quickly to rapidly growing global demand for artificial intelligence chips," an industry official told Yonhap. Neither Samsung nor the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has confirmed the 2029 date on the record, and the reporting rests on unnamed industry sources. The reason to hurry is not hard to find. Samsung's semiconductor division has been carried almost entirely by high-bandwidth memory sold into AI servers, and the company crossed a $1tn market value on the strength of that single product line. Its rivals are racing for the same window. SK Hynix is spending $51bn on a new NAND plant in Cheongju, with production targeted for the first half of 2029, which means two of the world's three largest memory makers are now aiming to switch on major new capacity in the same year. Samsung said last month that, under South Korea's "mega project" framework, it would invest 2,030 trillion won (about $1.35tn) across its Pyeongtaek and Yongin semiconductor clusters. A further 400 trillion won is earmarked for two new chip plants in Gwangju, 270km south of Seoul, per Yonhap. Those figures form part of a wider domestic package unveiled on 29 June at a national reporting meeting chaired by President Lee Jae Myung, and they cover horizons long enough that the annual spend matters more than the headline. The Gwangju leg is the piece that pushes Samsung into the country's chip-starved southwest, a region that has spent two decades watching the semiconductor belt form elsewhere. Samsung has not said which products the first Yongin fab will make, whether it will run logic, memory, or both, or how the accelerated schedule affects the five plants behind it. Nor has it published a construction sequence, and the reporting so far concerns a single date rather than a plan. The wider picture is one of everyone building at once. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, the three largest memory makers in the world, are all expanding capacity into the same demand curve, and Korea's mega-project framework exists in large part to stop those schedules from slipping against one another. What has not been solved is the grid. Korea's chip clusters have historically been held up by transmission lines rather than by lithography, and no announcement has yet confirmed that power provisioning at Yongin can be compressed by the same one to two years as the buildings. Samsung will give its next public read on capacity at its second-quarter earnings call. Until then, the only thing that has formally moved is a date, which in this industry is usually the hardest thing to move at all.

Samsung Speeds Up Yongin Chip Plant Launch to 2029 amid AI Memory Boom - SK Hynix (NASDAQ:SKHYV)

Samsung Speeds Up AI Chip Expansion On Sunday, Samsung said it now plans to begin operations at its first chip fabrication plant in Yongin, south of Seoul, in 2029 instead of the previously expected 2030-2031 timeframe, Reuters reported. A Samsung spokesperson said the company intends to start operations at the facility "one to two years" ahead of its original plan. At the time of writing, Samsung Electronics shares traded at 259,750 KRW (about $172), down 8.86% on the South Korean exchange, according to Benzinga Pro. South Korea Bets Big On Semiconductor Manufacturing Under the government's strategy, South Korea aims to double its memory chip production capacity within the next five years by accelerating construction of Samsung and SK Hynix fabrication plants in Yongin while developing a new semiconductor cluster in Gwangju. Samsung Forecasts Record Quarterly Profit And Revenue Earlier this month, Samsung estimated its April-June operating profit at 89.4 trillion won ($58.4 billion), up from 57.2 trillion won ($37.6 billion) in the previous quarter and 4.68 trillion won ($3.1 billion) a year earlier. The company also forecast 171 trillion won ($112.3 billion) in revenue for the quarter, compared with 133.87 trillion won ($87.9 billion) in the first quarter and 74.57 trillion won ($49 billion) in the same period last year. According to Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings, Samsung stock continues to demonstrate a positive price trend over the short, medium and long term. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo Courtesy: Kittyfly on Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.