Jan 27 (Reuters) – U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology is set to announce new memory chip manufacturing capacity investment in Singapore, three people briefed on the matter said, expanding production in response to an acute global memory shortage.
The company will announce the investment as soon as Tuesday, the people said. One said the investment would be in NAND flash memory.
The people declined to be identified as they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly. Micron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The investment comes as industries including consumer electronics and AI service providers grapple with a severe shortage of all types of memory chip brought about by a race to build AI infrastructure.
Micron has sizeable manufacturing facilities in Singapore where it makes 98% of its flash memory chips. It is also building a $7 billion advanced packaging plant for high bandwidth memory, used in artificial intelligence chips, in the city-state that is due to start production in 2027.
The chipmaker and its main rivals, South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix, have announced new production lines and are bringing forward production start dates. Still, analysts said the memory supply shortfall could last through late 2027.
Last week, Micron said it was in talks to buy a fabrication site from Powerchip in Taiwan, for $1.8 billion in cash, that it said would boost its output of DRAM wafers.
SK Hynix told Reuters this month that it plans to accelerate the opening of a new factory by three months and begin operating another new plant in February.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh, Fanny Potkin and Che Pan; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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