Micron announces the construction of a new NAND factory, with a total investment of $24 billion

On Tuesday, Micron Technology announced it will invest an additional $24 billion in Singapore over the next decade to build a new NAND flash wafer fab to address the supply tightness of storage chips driven by artificial intelligence. This new facility will be Singapore's first dual-layer wafer fab, with a cleanroom area of 700,000 square feet, and is expected to begin wafer production in the second half of 2028. The project will create approximately 1,600 jobs. This move highlights the worsening supply-demand imbalance in the global storage chip market. As AI infrastructure development drives a surge in NAND demand, Micron and its South Korean competitors SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics have shifted their production focus to high-end AI chips, leading to a shortage of storage chips for PC and smartphone manufacturers. Micron's large-scale expansion is an important part of its global capacity layout. The company has just launched a $100 billion factory project in New York State to alleviate what it calls "unprecedented supply tightening." AI Demand Drives NAND Prices Soaring NAND flash, as a replacement for hard disk drives, has seen a surge in demand in AI infrastructure development due to its faster access speeds. These chips are typically sold in the form of solid-state drives (SSDs) that can be directly inserted into the hard drive interfaces of computer systems. MS Hwang, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, stated: “ The importance of NAND in the AI field has been increasing recently, leading to a significant rise in NAND prices. Suppliers are reducing products aimed at the traditional consumer market, such as PC client SSDs and mobile flash, while increasing the supply share of enterprise-grade SSDs for data center servers.” The global storage market is dominated by Micron and its two South Korean competitors. Since last year, all three companies have prioritized the production of high-end chips needed for AI infrastructure, reallocating resources from storage chips in other segments, which has led PC and smartphone manufacturers to warn that the shortage of storage chips is harming their businesses. Global Capacity Expansion to Address Supply Tightness To alleviate supply tightness, Micron is aggressively expanding its capacity globally. In addition to the Singapore project, the company has just broken ground on a $100 billion facility in New York State. Singapore is already one of Micron's important NAND production bases. In early 2025, Micron announced it would invest $7 billion in Singapore over the next few years to expand manufacturing capacity to meet the demand for advanced storage chips needed for training artificial intelligence. Micron has long relied on Singapore and Japan as its key production bases. The new wafer fab will operate in conjunction with the previously started HBM advanced packaging facility, further strengthening Singapore's critical position in the global storage supply chain. Micron's investment in Singapore aligns with the country's strategy to develop cutting-edge industries from AI to advanced chip manufacturing. The Singapore government has committed to investing over SGD 1 billion ($786 million) to fund local AI research