According to Korean media reports, SK Hynix, the world's second largest memory chip maker, has frozen an investment plan for a domestic semiconductor factory in South Korea. The start of construction of a new plant in Cheongju, central South Korea, which was scheduled to start in 2025, will be delayed.

The investment in the new plant is 4.3 trillion won, and it was originally planned to mass-produce cutting-edge memory products. According to the original plan, construction of a new plant called "M17" will begin in 2023 on a 430,000-square-meter site adjacent to the existing plant, and it will be put into use in 2025. The company is currently mass-producing "NAND-type flash memory", a semiconductor for storage at its Cheongju plant, and the new plant was previously thought to also mass-produce NAND cutting-edge products.