SK chief pledges faster Gwangju chip cluster construction, with start date unsettled

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won pledged on October 9 to accelerate construction of a proposed semiconductor cluster during a visit to Gwangju Air Base in southwestern South Korea, citing growing chip demand. But he said the group still needed to determine when building would begin, leaving the project’s timing conditional despite the government’s 2030 production target.

“Once the conditions are met, we plan to build (the new cluster) as quickly as possible,” Chey said, according to Yonhap’s report of the visit. He said rapidly increasing demand required the group to accelerate supply. The remarks express his assessment of the market and the group’s intentions; they do not establish a groundbreaking date.

What SK has proposed for Gwangju

The visit was Chey’s first to the Jeonnam-Gwangju region since the conglomerate unveiled its building plan in June. Yonhap reported that Gwangju Air Base was selected as the site in July, and that SK hynix and Samsung Electronics had each outlined plans earlier this year for two new memory-chip fabrication plants in the region.

Chey described the proposed southwestern cluster as around two-thirds the size of the cluster under construction in Yongin, south of Seoul. Yonhap did not identify the measurement behind that comparison, so it does not establish a corresponding proportion of production capacity, spending or land area.

Air-base relocation shapes the construction timetable

According to the newspaper, the candidate industrial site covers about 8.2 square kilometers, including the air base, land planned for relocation of its ammunition depot and surrounding areas. Developer Korea Land & Housing Corporation planned to prepare about 2.1 square kilometers first, supplying land to companies in stages rather than waiting for the entire base to move.

That plan envisaged permits, design work and some site preparation being completed by 2027, followed by fab construction beginning in 2028 and initial mass production in 2030. Those are planning targets. Chey’s latest remarks did not settle a construction start date or turn the earlier timetable into a guaranteed schedule.

Chey did not specify the conditions attached to his pledge in Yonhap’s account. The relocation and land-development requirements explain the project’s setting, but were not presented as a list of conditions announced by him during the visit.

Power and water plans accompany the proposed fabs

Seoul Economic Daily reported estimated electricity requirements for four fabs of 3.1 gigawatts in the first phase and 6.3 gigawatts eventually. The government, local authorities, Korea Electric Power Corp., Samsung Electronics and SK hynix were working on transmission-network plans, with water supply to expand in stages alongside construction and operation.

The newspaper also reported company inspections of the site and its infrastructure conditions, and continuing local-government talks with both chipmakers about fab locations and construction schedules. These were preparations for the proposed complex, rather than evidence that its factories were already being built or operating.

The project had also faced speculation about a possible delay in SK hynix’s investment. Seoul Economic Daily reported that local authorities clarified on October 1 that Mayor Min Hyung-bae’s discussion of those concerns did not confirm the rumors as fact.

Yongin provides context, not a Gwangju investment total

At Yongin, SK hynix has separately outlined substantial spending. In its February 25 announcement, the company said it would invest approximately 21.6 trillion won in additional facilities for the first fab through December 2030. Including about 9.4 trillion won announced in July 2024, it put construction investment for that fab at roughly 31 trillion won.

The company linked that expansion to customer demand associated with artificial intelligence, data centers and high-performance computing. It said its updated figures reflected expanded cleanroom space and inflation, and excluded equipment-installation costs. Those amounts concern Yongin and cannot be treated as the budget for the southwestern proposal.

The same February announcement brought the planned opening of Yongin’s first cleanroom forward from May to February 2027. That historical company plan does not verify its current progress. For Gwangju, the October 9 development is Chey’s renewed commitment to build quickly once conditions are met, with the construction start still to be determined.