The Factory Aims to Enhance Production Efficiency and Reduce Costs by 2030, Leveraging Technologies like Operational AI, Physical AI, and Digital Twin
A view of the SK hynix Icheon campus. (Photo provided by SK Hynix)
SK hynix has decided to increase the supply of memory semiconductors, which are currently facing a shortage, by building an artificial intelligence (AI) factory capable of independently enhancing process efficiency to boost production and cut costs.
Doh Seung-yong, Head of SK hynix’s Digital Transformation (DT) division, speaking at a panel session at Nvidia’s annual developer conference ‘GTC 2026’ in San Jose, California, on March 17 (local time), announced, “We are pursuing the construction of an ‘autonomous fab’ with a target of 2030.” He added, “The goal is to dramatically shorten the transition speed from design to mass production by enabling the factory to learn and make decisions on its own.”
To realize the autonomous fab, SK hynix is developing three core technologies: Operational AI, Physical AI, and Digital Twin. Operational AI will serve as the ‘factory’s brain,’ making key decisions based on data. It is expected to reduce the processing time for major tasks such as equipment maintenance and defect analysis by more than 50%.
Physical AI will streamline logistics operations, such as reducing component inventory by 30%, by utilizing vision (visual information) and autonomous robots. Digital Twin is a technology that pre-simulates production flow, material movement, and layout in a virtual factory implemented through Nvidia’s physical AI platform, ‘Omniverse’.
The autonomous fab is a customer-friendly policy introduced by memory supplier SK hynix to resolve the chip supply shortage. Following a record-high operating profit of 47 trillion won last year, forecasts are gaining traction that SK hynix’s operating profit will soar well past 100 trillion won this year due to surging prices. While the company could secure large profits by selling memory at high prices immediately, it has determined that for the medium to long term, it is more advantageous in the competition for leadership against Samsung Electronics and Micron to retain as many big tech clients as possible through customer-friendly policies.
SK Chairman Chey Tae-won had also previewed on the previous day at the GTC event, stating, “We will soon announce a new plan for (memory) price stabilization.” Doh, who unveiled the specific measures a day later, said, “While semiconductor demand is currently increasing rapidly, there is a structural limitation where manufacturing struggles to expand at the same pace.” He added, “The operational difficulty of factories has risen as the proportion of high-value-added and customized products, such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), has expanded.” He explained, “Production expansion, including the investment in the U.S. Indiana fab, must be paralleled by efficiency improvements in existing production lines.”
SK hynix will also strengthen its collaboration with Nvidia to expedite the construction of the autonomous fab. This is because the autonomous fab will be operated through large-scale AI data centers based on Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) servers. The vision is to increase HBM supply to support Nvidia’s GPU production, which SK hynix will then purchase back to implement supply innovation through its autonomous fab.
Jung Min-hee
pr@businesskorea.co.kr
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