SK Hynix has set its sights on Dalian, and the chip industry is restarting.

In August 2026, in Jinzhou New District of Dalian, a construction site that had stayed silent for four years saw its tower cranes start rotating again.

This is no ordinary resumption of real estate construction, but the revival of a super factory: SK Hynix, the global AI storage giant, has suddenly restarted the construction of the No. 2 plant at its Dalian NAND flash memory production base.

The new production line is planned to have a monthly wafer input of 50,000 mature process wafers, and is expected to enter mass production in the first half of 2027. Once put into operation, the overall production capacity of the Dalian base will directly surge by 50%

When the news came out, people in the semiconductor circle were all taken aback.

It should be noted that the main frame of this factory was built as early as 2022, but then it seemed to have been pressed the pause button, and it stopped for a full four years.

Over the four years, the steel and concrete skeleton was exposed to the sea wind and sun, and became the "largest unfinished plant" in the local people's mouth.

Just when everyone thought it was going to be completely forgotten, SK Hynix suddenly made a surprise move.

Why at this critical juncture? What on earth is the relationship between the fate of this factory and the chip industry dream of the city of Dalian?

To answer these questions, we have to turn the clock back to nearly 20 years ago.

2007, Intel's High-Stakes Bet

On March 26, 2007, Paul Otellini, President of Intel Corporation of the United States, announced a news that shocked China's technology circle: Intel will invest 2.5 billion US dollars to build a 300mm wafer fab in Dalian.

This is Intel's first wafer manufacturing base in Asia, and also the largest single foreign investment in China at that time.

It should be noted that before that, Intel only had two packaging and testing plants in Pudong, Shanghai and Chengdu, Sichuan in China. Placing the most core wafer manufacturing link in China, and even in Dalian in Northeast China, made many people feel confused at that time.

What makes Dalian qualified for this?

During the site selection process, Intel threw more than 1000 questions to Dalian, covering everything from geological conditions to power supply, from talent reserve to logistics supporting facilities.

The response from Dalian was so straightforward that it surprised everyone. In the relocation process, the local area created the much-talked-about "Dongjiagang Miracle": 246 households were relocated within 9 days, and the relocation of nearly 300 households was completed in one month.

When Intel's inspection team visited the site, they were completely convinced.

In September 2007, Intel Dalian Wafer Fab broke ground in the Export Processing Zone of Jinzhou New District. The total investment of this plant is 2.5 billion US dollars, with a total floor area of 163,000 square meters, which is equivalent to the size of 23 standard football fields.

The plant contains a 15,000-square-meter clean room. When it was officially put into operation on October 26, 2010, it adopted the mainstream 65-nanometer process technology at that time.

At that moment, Dalian officially joined the global semiconductor map.

2015, The Critical Turn

After Intel Dalian Plant was put into operation, it mainly produced chipset products for laptops, desktops and servers. But the semiconductor industry is changing rapidly, and it never gives anyone a chance to catch their breath.

In 2015, Intel made a major decision: to transform the Dalian plant from chipset production to 3D NAND flash memory manufacturing.

This transformation is of great significance. NAND flash memory is a non-volatile memory chip, which is the core component in solid-state drives of mobile phones and computers.

With the explosion of smartphones and cloud computing, the demand for NAND flash memory is growing at an alarming rate. Intel's transformation of the Dalian plant into a 3D NAND base means that this plant has jumped from the marginal role of "supporting chipset" to the core fulcrum of Intel's global storage strategy.

In those years, the Dalian plant continued to expand production and upgrade, and became one of the most important production bases for Intel's non-volatile memory business. By 2020, the plant had cultivated a large number of local semiconductor talents, and also promoted the initial agglomeration of upstream and downstream industrial chains in Dalian.

But when the Dalian plant was thriving, Intel itself ran into trouble.

2020, The $9 Billion Transaction

In October 2020, a merger and acquisition case that shocked the whole world took place in the semiconductor industry: SK Hynix announced that it would acquire Intel's NAND flash memory business and the Dalian plant for 9 billion US dollars.

This transaction was carried out in stages. In 2021, SK Hynix completed the first phase of delivery and officially took over Intel's NAND plant in Dalian. Subsequently, SK Hynix established a wholly-owned subsidiary Solidigm, which is dedicated to the NAND flash memory business, and the Dalian plant also got its new nameplate.

Why did Intel sell it? The reason is simple: the NAND flash memory market is fiercely competitive. Giants including Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and Kioxia are fighting fiercely. Although Intel's NAND business has good technology, its market share has never risen and it has continued to suffer losses.

Intel wanted to get rid of this burden and focus on its old business of CPUs.

Why did SK Hynix buy it? Because it wanted to expand NAND production capacity and narrow the gap with Samsung. The Dalian plant is SK Hynix's most important asset worldwide, where there are not only ready-made plants and equipment, but also well-trained employees and a mature supply chain.

In May 2022, SK Hynix, full of ambition, launched the construction of the Dalian No. 2 plant. According to the plan at that time, the first plant would achieve stable mass production, and the second plant would be newly expanded. The two-pronged approach was to build Dalian into an important stronghold of SK Hynix's global NAND production capacity.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, leaders at all levels showed up, and the media reported extensively. It seemed that the project was about to be carried out on a large scale.

But no one expected that the fate of this plant would be so rough.

2022, Sudden Brake

As soon as the main frame of the No. 2 plant was built, SK Hynix stepped on a sudden brake.

The reasons for the shutdown are simple, just two points:

First, the market is not good. Since the second half of 2022, the memory chip industry has plunged into a cold winter. The price of NAND flash memory has plummeted to an extremely low level, and the demand is extremely sluggish. SK Hynix itself was making losses, so how could it have money to continue expanding production?

Second, the United States has imposed technical blockades. The United States has continuously tightened export restrictions on semiconductor equipment to China, making equipment and materials for advanced processes unable to be imported. Although SK Hynix has obtained some licenses, the future is full of huge uncertainties, and continuing to invest money in building the second plant carries extremely high risks.

Under the attack from both inside and outside, the Dalian No. 2 plant became a hot potato. After the main frame was completed, it was left idle there, and it stopped for a full four years.

Over the four years, under the erosion of sea wind and sun, the surface of the steel structure began to rust, and the weeds around the construction site grew taller than people.

Four Years, What Is Dalian Waiting For?

During the four years when the plant was shut down, Dalian did not wait passively.

Once the semiconductor industry takes root, it will gradually grow vines. With Intel and SK Hynix as the anchors, Dalian's semiconductor industry ecosystem has grown little by little in the past nearly 20 years.

According to data from the Dalian Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, by 2024, Dalian has gathered nearly 40 semiconductor enterprises including SK Hynix, Rohm, and Sanken Semiconductor, covering the whole chain of integrated circuit design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, as well as supporting equipment and materials.

In 2024, Dalian's semiconductor industry achieved a total industrial output value of 28.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.3%. Dalian has formed technical advantages in key material fields such as electronic specialty gases, electronic pastes, and photoresists.

In August 2025, Dalian Puwan North Silicon Valley Integrated Circuit Park was awarded the only provincial-level characteristic park for the integrated circuit industry in Liaoning Province. This is an official clear recognition of Dalian's status in the semiconductor industry.

At a more macro level, in 2025, Dalian's regional GDP reached 1,000.21 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%, making it officially the first city in Northeast China with a GDP exceeding one trillion yuan.

But to be honest, the 28.7 billion yuan output value of the semiconductor industry is not outstanding across the country. Especially when seeing the data of Hefei Changxin Storage, this gap is astonishing.

In the first half of 2026, Changxin Technology's revenue reached 150.31 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 873.64%, and its net profit was 77.6 billion yuan.

In other words, the revenue of Changxin alone in half a year is more than five times the annual output value of Dalian's entire semiconductor industry.

Dalian still needs an explosive point.

2025, The Outbreak of Memory Chips

The turning point came around 2025.

The training and inference of AI large models have led to an exponential increase in demand for massive high-speed storage. With the parameter volume of large models often reaching hundreds of billions or trillions, high-performance and large-capacity enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs) have become the standard configuration of computing power clusters.

Research firm Omdia predicts that from 2025 to 2030, the average annual growth rate of market demand for DRAM and NAND flash memory will reach 19%.

A more intuitive data is: The price of NAND flash memory has skyrocketed by nearly 10 times within a year.

Memory chips have changed from low-cost commodities to hard currencies. The capacity expansion plans that were shelved in the past due to losses suddenly have clear commercial return expectations. SK Hynix's financial reports have improved significantly, and it has regained the confidence to expand production.

But market demand is only the "pull" force. What really makes SK Hynix unable to sit still is another "push" force.

Pressure from China's Two Leading Memory Enterprises

In the second quarter of 2026, a landmark event took place in the global NAND flash memory market: data released by the third-party agency Counterpoint Research showed that YMTC, with a 14% share of shipment capacity, surpassed Kioxia for the first time and ranked among the top three in the world, second only to Samsung (25%) and the SK Hynix Group (22%).

In the DRAM track, Changxin Technology achieved a revenue of 150.31 billion yuan in the first half of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 873.64%, and a net profit of 77.6 billion yuan. It has become the world's fourth largest DRAM manufacturer and the only enterprise in China that has achieved large-scale DRAM mass production.

The rapid catch-up of China's two leading memory enterprises has made the global memory overlords feel unprecedented pressure. An insider said bluntly: If Samsung and SK Hynix continue to promote production capacity at the original pace, they will be caught up or even surpassed before long.

Therefore, SK Hynix's restart of the Dalian No. 2 plant is, to some extent, a defensive move. It must expand its production capacity to maintain its share in the high-end market and avoid being left far behind by the tight pursuit of local Chinese competitors.

The Hidden Line Behind the Restart

If you think that SK Hynix's restart of the Dalian No. 2 plant is purely due to the improved market and intensified competition, you are underestimating this event.

There is also a hidden line that many people have ignored.

South Korean media disclosed that the equipment license issued by the United States to SK Hynix's China plant only covers the end of 2026. That is to say, if SK Hynix does not move the equipment in and run the production line within this year, it may not even be able to import the equipment next year.

So looking at the timeline: resume investment in the first half of 2026, move in production equipment as soon as November, and achieve mass production in the first half of 2027. Every step is very tight, almost racing against the expiration date of the US license.

What's more interesting is that ten days after the news of the restart of the Dalian No. 2 plant came out, SK Hynix also spread the news that it planned to build a large memory chip plant in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, with potential investment of up to tens of trillions of won.

It should be noted that South Korea and Japan have constant frictions and mutual vigilance in the semiconductor field, and this is the first time that a South Korean semiconductor company has established a production base in Japan.

While rushing to restart the Chinese production line before the US license expires, it is also evaluating placing the next plant in Japan. Behind SK Hynix's global layout is the direct collision of the two forces from China and the United States.

China has plants, workers and supply chains that can be put into production immediately, which is a production base that SK Hynix cannot avoid; while the United States is trying to use equipment licenses to keep future advanced production capacity within the alliance system.

From a strategic perspective, SK Hynix is taking a "dual-track approach": placing mature process NAND production capacity in Dalian, China, and concentrating 300-layer and above ultra-high stack high-end NAND in Cheongju, South Korea.

The existing monthly production capacity of Dalian No. 1 plant is about 100,000 wafers, and the No. 2 plant adds about 50,000 wafers, making the total production capacity reach 150,000 wafers, which is close to half of SK Hynix's global NAND production capacity. Moreover, if we only look at overseas NAND front-end manufacturing, Dalian is currently SK Hynix's only production base, accounting for 100% of the share.

The importance of this plant to SK Hynix is self-evident.

Can Dalian Usher in Its Own "Changxin Moment"

What does the restart of SK Hynix's No. 2 plant mean to Dalian?

The most direct impact is the return of production capacity, investment and jobs. But the deeper impact lies in the driving effect of the industrial chain.

Hefei spent ten years, relying on continuous bets on Changxin Storage, growing from a central provincial capital with no chip industry foundation to a highland of the national memory industry. This path of "taking leading enterprises as the traction to drive the agglomeration of the whole industrial chain" is called the "Changxin Model" in the industry.

Dalian today is taking a similar path. With Intel and SK Hynix as the anchors for nearly 20 years, Dalian has formed a relatively complete industrial supporting ecosystem, and key links such as integrated circuit packaging equipment and electronic paste have formed agglomeration.

In the 2026 Dalian municipal government work report, "focus on promoting the construction of projects such as SK Hynix Phase III" was clearly written into it. The city's determination for industrial breakthrough is clearly visible.

But the gap is also a reality. Dalian's semiconductor industry output value in 20