US Blocks Approval of Chipmaking Equipment SK Hynix Needs to Expand China Output

US officials have held up approval for American chipmaking equipment that SK Hynix requires to expand production at its facility in China, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Reuters. The holdup affects the South Korean memory chipmaker's ability to outfit and scale operations at its manufacturing complex in Dalian, China, where part of the facility has yet to receive a full installation of production machinery.

The development comes roughly three weeks after Reuters reported that SK Hynix had made approval for additional US equipment exports to China a condition for its US subsidiary Solidigm building a new NAND flash memory factory in the United States. The Trump administration has been pressing SK Hynix, Samsung, and other foreign chipmakers to commit to American manufacturing investments as part of a broader push to rebuild domestic semiconductor capacity.

Washington has restricted exports of chipmaking equipment to China as part of ongoing efforts to slow Beijing's development of advanced semiconductors used in artificial intelligence and military applications. The decision to hold up SK Hynix's approval underscores the tension between that policy and the administration's parallel effort to attract foreign chip investment to the US, a dynamic that places South Korean manufacturers in a difficult negotiating position.