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 exploit on its own.

Intel’s broader recovery under Lip-Bu Tan

Intel’s Q2 2026 revenue hit $16.1 billion, a 25% year-over-year increase. The real standout is Intel’s Data Center and AI segment, which posted $6.3 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 59% year-over-year surge, reflecting the company’s improved positioning in AI-capable server processors.

The company has also raised its full-year capital expenditure guidance to $20 billion for 2026. Previous announcements pegged the potential investment in the Ohio complex at up to $100 billion over time. The Ohio facility’s initial production timelines have been pushed back to 2030-2031, meaning any SK Hynix partnership wouldn’t produce chips for several years.

What the partnership could mean for the semiconductor landscape

If the SK Hynix arrangement materializes, it would represent a foreign memory giant manufacturing at an American logic chipmaker’s facility. The arrangement would also align with the US government’s broader push to reshore semiconductor production, backed by tens of billions in subsidies and incentives through the CHIPS Act.

For SK Hynix, the appeal is access to US-based manufacturing capacity without the multi-year, multi-billion-dollar process of building a greenfield fab from scratch. For Intel, it means revenue from an asset that has been burning cash, plus deeper integration into the AI supply chain. Samsung and Micron, the other major memory producers, will be watching closely, as a US-based SK Hynix operation could shift pricing dynamics and supply allocation across the cloud computing and AI industries.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.