SK Chairman Promises ‘Much, Much Bigger’ US Investment Plan

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, fresh off a landmark US stock offering for the conglomerate’s memory-chip business, said he has an ambitious plan to invest more money in America.

SK Group is already putting more than $35 billion into the US, Chey said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “My plan is at a much bigger number,” he said, “much, much, much bigger than $35 billion.”

The South Korean conglomerate is part of a stampede of technology companies touting their investments in the US. Fellow Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. also is expanding its operations in the country.

Reestablishing chip manufacturing in the US has been a signature issue for President Donald Trump. The White House orchestrated an unprecedented investment in Intel Corp. as part of efforts to bolster manufacturing — much of which has decamped for Asia and other regions in recent decades.

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In the interview, Chey noted that SK has already made multiple investments in the US, including a battery operation and a new semiconductor packaging site in Indiana. “Not many people notice those things,” he said.

Chey, whose company controls the South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc., made the comments after that business raised $26.5 billion with its American depositary receipt offering. It was the largest first-time share sale of its kind by a foreign company.

SK Hynix, which competes with Samsung and US-based Micron Technology Inc. in the memory-chip market, is benefiting from runaway demand for its products — fueled in part by the artificial intelligence spending boom.

Chey said the chipmaker is considering new ways of selling access to its technology, including a concept called “memory as a service.” He suggested that customers could rent usage rather than purchasing the actual semiconductors.

“We could actually deliver some other business models,” he said in the interview. “We could be memory servicers, memory as a service. In the future, that is another area where we could actually focus.”

Read More: SK Chairman Says Company May Offer ‘Memory as a Service’

Chey also said SK Hynix was open to issuing more US shares if the returns and stock price warrant it.

“Once we have a better return, then there’s more demand,” he said. “The first thing we have to do is keep the stock price stable, and then hopefully in the long run we can have the upside potential.”

Read More: SK Hynix Open to Issuing More US Shares, SK Group Chairman Says