US names Korea's Honam cluster, pressing Samsung and SK Hynix to build memory fabs in America
Washington directly named Seoul's 800 trillion won ($577B) Honam cluster for the first time — and read it as a snub. After two days of Lutnick meetings, the US is now demanding Samsung and SK Hynix build front-end memory fabs on American soil. Markets flinched: KOSPI fell 2.66%, SK Hynix dropped 5%. Korea's September announcement may end up a surrender of its AI bet.