Samsung, SK Hynix shares fall as investors brace for reported $1.3 trillion spending plans

Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix plunged on Monday after reports surfaced that the pair are expected to unveil investment plans worth more than a trillion dollars. Samsung Electronics' stock was down 4.7%, while SK Hynix was 3.1% lower. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will unveil major investment plans of up to 2,000 trillion won ($1.3 trillion) over the next 10 years, the Korea Economic Daily reported. The investment plans will be announced during a government briefing at 2 p.m. local time Monday. The meeting will be chaired by President Lee Jae Myung, the presidential office said Sunday. The announcement comes after the Maeil Business Newspaper on Friday reported that Samsung Group will announce a 1,000 trillion won ($646 billion) investment program spanning the next decade. The Maeil report said Samsung's decade-long investment blueprint would span semiconductor fabs, AI data centers, advanced packaging, batteries and displays, including roughly 300 trillion won for new fabs in southwestern South Korea, 360 trillion won for the Yongin semiconductor cluster and more than 350 trillion won for AI data centers. The report did not clarify whether those figures overlap. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have emerged as central players in the artificial intelligence boom, with demand for high-bandwidth memory chips outpacing supply as cloud providers and technology firms race to expand AI infrastructure. SK Hynix is the leading supplier of advanced HBM chips to Nvidia, while Samsung has been investing heavily to narrow the technology gap with its domestic rival.