SK Hynix was revealed to be building a new chip packaging factory in the United States early next year, costing billions of dollars

US News quoted two people familiar with the matter as saying that SK Hynix, one of the South Korean electronics giants, is choosing a site for its planned new advanced chip packaging plant in the United States. If all goes well, the new plant will break ground in the first quarter of 2023. The total investment is estimated to be in the "billions", creating around 1,000 jobs, with mass production expected in 2025-2026.

In a statement to Reuters, SK Hynix did not disclose further details about the new factory, but sources said it was likely to be located near a university with ample engineering talent.

In addition, the company will build a nationwide network of R&D partners and facilities, and package its own memory chips and logic chips designed by other U.S. companies for machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

South Korea's SK Group announced plans for the new plant last month as part of a $22 billion U.S. investment package for semiconductor, green energy and bioscience projects.

In addition, the White House said that the plan will allocate $15 billion in funding to the semiconductor industry by supporting research and development projects that encourage materials and advanced packaging and testing facilities.

Both chip development facilities and packaging factories could get a piece of the pie, the sources said.

Previously, due to the consideration of international division of labor, American chip manufacturers were accustomed to handing over low-value packaging and testing business to overseas factories in Asia.

However, as the race for advanced packaging technology heats up, the US government is trying to increase the competitiveness of local manufacturing through the Chip Act and supporting incentives.

The bill, signed this week, provides $52 billion in subsidies for chip R&D and manufacturing. In addition, there is a $24 billion tax credit for chip factories.

Finally, in addition to SK Hynix, which recently announced to set up a factory in the United States to qualify for subsidies, TSMC, Samsung, and Intel have also announced a series of expansion plans.