SK chairman warns Chinese memory chipmakers are catching up fast

SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won warned on Sunday of mounting competition in memory chips, saying South Korea's market share would shrink if Chinese manufacturers or U.S.-based Micron expanded capacity faster. Speaking on the sidelines of the Shanghai mayor's international business leaders advisory council, Chey said demand was enormous and the problem would be failing to add new plants, according to South Korean media reports.

Chey singled out China's CXMT, a DRAM maker, and NAND flash producer YMTC, which are growing rapidly with state support. If nothing is done, Korea will be caught up across the board, he was quoted as saying. He called for maximum speed on a planned semiconductor cluster in the southwestern Honam region, whose proposed site at the Gwangju military airport he visited on Friday, possibly in parallel with expansion in Yongin. Plants abroad, including in Japan, are under review.

Chey pushed back against U.S. criticism of Korean chip plants in China, saying it was not very wise to think China's chip industry could be stopped by blocking such investment. SK says it has invested about $60 billion in China and plans an AI research center in Shanghai, including work on so-called physical AI.