Samsung expands Pyeongtaek semiconductor hub to meet AI demand

The AI boom runs on GPUs. GPUs, it turns out, run on memory, and Samsung is building as fast as it can to supply it. The company is expanding its semiconductor manufacturing complex in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, into one of the most ambitious memory production sites anywhere. Three fabs already run around the clock. A fourth is coming online, and a fifth is back under construction after a year when the economics looked grim. A campus that never sleeps Samsung’s Pyeongtaek campus sits in Gyeonggi Province. It has grown steadily since its first fab, known as P1, launched in 2017. The site now has three active fabs, and the next two are where the real ambition lives. At P4, Samsung is converting a production line from NAND to a dedicated DRAM line. The P4 DRAM line is targeting a production capacity of 100,000 to 120,000 wafers per month by Q1 2027. The line will use Samsung’s 1c process, its latest generation of DRAM manufacturing technology. The fab that got paused, then unpaused P5 is the most telling piece of the story. Construction on the fifth fab was halted in 2024, when demand for memory chips dropped. Then the AI boom sent demand soaring, and the work restarted. Construction on...