Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are accelerating their semiconductor expansion plans by roughly a decade to meet surging demand for AI memory chips, underscoring the scale of the artificial intelligence capital cycle that has drawn investment away from crypto this year.
South Korea’s two largest chipmakers plan to invest about 800 trillion won ($518 billion) to build four new fabrication plants in the country’s southwest, according to a Monday announcement. The initiative is part of a broader national strategy to double DRAM output—core memory used in smartphones and computers—over the next five years.
A South Korean presidential adviser said AI-driven demand could push completion timelines forward to 2034 or 2035, more than a decade ahead of the original 2044 target. Separately, SK Hynix recently announced plans for a roughly $29 billion U.S. listing to fund further expansion, one of the largest ever.
The investment surge is centered on high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a critical component used in AI model training and large language systems such as ChatGPT and Claude.
SK Hynix has become the dominant HBM supplier, briefly overtaking Samsung as South Korea’s most valuable listed company for the first time in 25 years. Together, the two firms supply most of the global HBM market and have secured major contracts with Nvidia and OpenAI.
The scale of this spending highlights the broader capital rotation into AI, which has come at the expense of crypto markets. Throughout the year, digital assets have lagged even on days when AI-linked equities rebounded, reflecting diverging investor appetite.
According to Gabe Selby of CF Benchmarks, a significant share of new risk capital has flowed into AI-related trades, reducing crypto’s share of overall market attention.
The shift is also visible across traditional hedge assets. Recent selloffs in gold, silver, and bitcoin during a unwind of defensive positioning saw capital redirected into AI equities rather than returning to crypto.
Even within the industry, the trend is evident, with some bitcoin miners reallocating computing capacity toward AI hosting services that offer steadier, contract-based revenues compared to mining volatility.
South Korea’s $518 billion buildout signals a long-term view that AI infrastructure demand is structural rather than cyclical. Crypto, meanwhile, has spent much of the year on the other side of that capital flow, raising questions about whether sidelined liquidity will eventually rotate back.
Bitcoin is now on track to close the first half of 2026 below $60,000 and is trading near its 200-week moving average, a key long-term level that has historically marked extended periods of weakness, with limited catalysts in sight as capital continues to favor AI and semiconductor investments.
