South Korean company SK Hynix has officially restarted its expansion plans in China. According to a report from SE Daily, the company has resumed investment in its Dalian Fab 2 plant, a project that was put on hold during the last downturn in the NAND and DRAM memory markets.
After completing the construction of the infrastructure earlier this year, the company plans to install the needed equipment before the end of 2026, with commercial operations expected to begin during the first half of 2027.
SK Hynix Expands NAND Production in China
The facility will be controlled by Solidigm, the subsidiary created by SK Hynix after it acquired Intel‘s NAND memory business in 2021. The new plant is expected to reach a capacity of around 50,000 wafers per month. This will increase the total production of the Dalian complex by 50% when combined with the Fab 1 and Fab 2 plants.
SK Hynix’s strategy makes a clear difference between its production centers. Due to international restrictions on the export of advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment to China, the Dalian complex focuses only on producing general-purpose 100-layer NAND memory, using the Floating Gate technology inherited from Intel. Meanwhile, the most advanced technologies and higher-capacity memory products remain concentrated in South Korea.
The increase in production capacity at Dalian represents an important step toward reducing the worldwide shortage of flash memory. Although NAND chip and SSD prices are expected to remain high during the next year, the gradual increase in supply during 2027 should help stabilize the market.
