Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are accelerating their semiconductor expansion plans by roughly a decade to meet surging demand for AI memory chips, highlighting the scale of the artificial intelligence investment cycle that has drawn capital away from crypto throughout the 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 project is part of a national strategy to double DRAM output—key memory used in smartphones and computers—over the next five years.
A South Korean presidential adviser said AI-driven demand could pull completion timelines forward to 2034 or 2035, more than a decade ahead of the original 2044 target. Separately, SK Hynix has outlined plans for a roughly $29 billion U.S. listing to help fund expansion, one of the largest on record.
The spending boom is concentrated in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a critical component used in training AI systems and powering large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude.
SK Hynix has emerged as the dominant HBM supplier, briefly becoming South Korea’s most valuable listed company for the first time in 25 years, ahead of Samsung. Together, the two firms supply most of the global HBM market and have secured major contracts with Nvidia and OpenAI.
The surge in AI infrastructure investment underscores a broader capital rotation that has weighed on crypto markets. Digital assets have lagged for much of the year, even during periods when AI-linked equities rebounded, reflecting shifting investor preference.
According to Gabe Selby of CF Benchmarks, a large share of new risk capital has moved into AI-related trades, compressing crypto’s share of overall market exposure.
The shift is also visible across traditional hedge assets. Recent selloffs in gold, silver, and bitcoin during a unwind of defensive positioning saw capital flow into AI equities rather than returning to digital assets.
Within the crypto industry itself, the trend is evident, with some bitcoin miners redirecting computing power toward AI hosting services that offer steadier, contract-based revenue compared with mining volatility.
South Korea’s $518 billion buildout reflects a long-term bet that AI infrastructure demand is structural rather than cyclical. Crypto, meanwhile, has remained on the opposite side of that capital flow, raising questions about whether sidelined liquidity will eventually rotate back into digital assets.
Bitcoin is on track to end the first half of 2026 below $60,000 and is trading near its 200-week moving average, a long-term technical level that has historically marked extended periods of weakness, with limited catalysts in sight as capital continues to favor AI and semiconductor investments.
