Intel’s stock rises as investors anticipate memory chip turnaround

Intel shares climbed roughly 3-5% in premarket trading on September 16 after reports surfaced that South Korea’s SK Hynix is exploring conversations with Intel about manufacturing memory chips on American soil. The potential arrangement could involve SK Hynix leasing space at Intel’s underutilized Ohio chipmaking complex, or structuring a strategic partnership with major cloud providers. The memory crisis fueling the deal Memory prices have surged an estimated 5-7 times over previous pricing levels, driven by an acute AI-related shortage that shows no signs of easing. Intel’s own CPUs are reportedly meeting only about 50% of existing demand, a supply gap that has rippled through the entire AI infrastructure stack. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has publicly identified memory as a significant supply bottleneck for AI infrastructure. SK Hynix is one of the world’s dominant memory manufacturers, particularly in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips that power AI accelerators. Intel has a massive, underutilized fab complex in Ohio. Connecting those two dots could help alleviate pressure across the AI supply chain while giving Intel a revenue stream from infrastructure it hasn’t been able to fully ex...