July 13, 2026 /SemiMedia/ — Samsung Electronics said it plans to bring forward the start of production at its first chip manufacturing facility in Yongin, south of Seoul, to 2029 as demand for memory chips used in artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to grow.

The facility had previously been scheduled to begin production between 2030 and 2031.

Yongin is one of South Korea’s key semiconductor manufacturing hubs. Samsung’s accelerated timeline shows that AI servers, high-performance computing and data center demand are pushing Korean memory makers to expand capacity more quickly.

In June, after South Korean President Lee Jae-myung called for measures to reduce regional economic disparities, Samsung and SK hynix pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to expand domestic semiconductor capacity.

Under the plan, South Korea aims to double its memory chip capacity within five years by accelerating Samsung and SK hynix factory construction in Yongin and building a new chip cluster in Gwangju.

A Samsung Electronics spokesperson said the company plans to start production at its first manufacturing facility in Yongin in 2029, one to two years earlier than originally planned.

Industry analysts said Samsung’s accelerated Yongin schedule is directly tied to tight AI memory supply. Demand for HBM, DDR5, server DRAM and high-end NAND continues to rise, forcing major memory suppliers to plan long-term capacity earlier.

Samsung, SK hynix and Micron are all expanding AI memory investments. Because new fabs require long lead times for construction, equipment installation, process qualification and yield ramp-up, an earlier production schedule could improve Samsung’s supply position in the next phase of AI memory demand.

For South Korea, the Yongin and Gwangju projects are not only corporate capacity investments, but also part of a broader effort to strengthen the domestic semiconductor supply chain and regional economic development.

As global AI infrastructure investment continues to grow, South Korea is seeking to reinforce its position in memory manufacturing, advanced packaging and related materials and equipment supply chains.