Source: Reuters
Memory chip customers are now willing to finance dedicated production capacity at SK Hynix—a reversal that exposes how badly the supply crisis has warped buyer-supplier dynamics and how desperate major tech companies still are to lock in semiconductor access. This is a tax on scarcity, where customers effectively subsidize their suppliers' capex while surrendering negotiating power. That major tech companies are doing this with a tier-one chipmaker suggests even the oligopoly's current expansion plans aren't moving fast enough to satisfy demand from AI data centers and consumer electronics makers.