SK Group's Chey Tae-won says he is exploring joint semiconductor factory in Japan

Interview with Bloomberg in Japan

Chey cites meeting AI demand and cutting production costs

as reasons to study feasibility of joint venture

Chey Tae-won, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, delivers an opening address at the Korea-Japan Low Birth Rate Response Exchange Committee held at the Western Hotel in Sendai, Japan, on Sunday.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, currently visiting Japan, said he is exploring the possibility of establishing a joint semiconductor factory in the country.

Speaking to Bloomberg on Monday, Chey said he is studying the feasibility of a joint venture to produce memory chips in Japan as one way to meet surging AI demand and reduce production costs.

"We are looking across all of Japan," he said. "Anywhere with good power and water supply is a possibility."

However, he declined to name potential joint-venture partners, specific candidate sites within Japan, or what products the factory would produce.

Chey is in Japan to attend a joint meeting of the Korea and Japan chambers of commerce. At a separate event ahead of the annual meeting that addressed the two countries' shrinking workforces, he said, "Now is the time for Korea and Japan to form an economic bloc."

Bloomberg characterized SK hynix's consideration of a Japanese factory as part of a broader effort to deepen ties with customers and suppliers in the country.

SK hynix holds a stake of roughly 14 percent or more in Japanese NAND flash maker Kioxia through Bain Capital's SPC Group.

SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung said last week that the company is "carefully reviewing ways to jointly develop the NAND flash market with customers and partners."

SK hynix works with a range of Japanese suppliers, from unlisted Namics to semiconductor equipment giant Tokyo Electron, and counts Sony Group and Nintendo among its major customers. US chipmaker Micron Technology also operates a factory in Hiroshima in western Japan.

The Japanese government has actively subsidized factory expansion projects by foreign semiconductor manufacturers such as Taiwan's TSMC.

SK hynix broke ground on a next-generation HBM advanced packaging factory in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Thursday (local time), and is exploring additional steps to expand into overseas markets.

Bloomberg said SK hynix is "scouting semiconductor production sites around the world to meet AI's explosive data-storage demand, while also navigating US efforts to curb China's technology ambitions."

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