Intel shares climbed about 8% Thursday as investors kept buying into reports that SK Hynix may produce memory chips at the chipmaker's delayed Ohio campus.
Key Points:
- Intel rose about 8% Thursday, a day after closing up 4% on the first report of the talks.
- SK Hynix could lease part of Intel's Ohio site or join a venture with cloud companies.
- Neither company has confirmed a deal, and Intel declined to comment on the discussions.
Intel SK Hynix Memory Talks
The discussions surfaced Wednesday in a report citing three people familiar with them, and the stock responded at once. Intel closed that session up 4.03% at $101.05.
Shares then extended the move Thursday, trading near $111 as the broader chip sector rallied.
One scenario would have SK Hynix lease part of Intel's planned campus in Ohio, while another would create a joint venture with Intel and large cloud companies seeking steady memory supply.
Neither side is promising anything. SK Hynix said it is exploring options to strengthen its competitiveness, but no specific plans have been finalized, and Intel declined to comment while restating its commitment to the Ohio site.
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Analysts Weigh Intel Foundry
An agreement would hand Intel the kind of outside customer that CEO Lip-Bu Tan has been chasing for its contract manufacturing arm. SK Hynix leads the market for high-bandwidth memory, the chips that AI accelerators depend on. Its first U.S. plant, a $4 billion site in Indiana that broke ground last month, will only package and test chips rather than make them.
Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes reiterated a Buy rating with a $165 target and said the stock could reach $200 in two years, while Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya carries a $145 target.
The unit still needs the help. Intel Foundry booked $5.8 billion of second-quarter revenue, yet only $293 million of that came from customers other than Intel itself, though operating losses there narrowed to $2.1 billion from $3.2 billion a year earlier.
Intel Stock Swings
Ohio explains much of the enthusiasm, and much of the caution. Intel once expected production at the roughly $28 billion site in 2025, then said in February 2025 that its first factory would not finish until 2030. South Korea's trade ministry has separately warned that a deal could face review if national core technologies are involved.
The two companies are not strangers. SK Hynix bought Intel's NAND memory business in a $9 billion deal, so a lease in Ohio would put that buyer back inside an Intel campus.
The stock has whipsawed all year. Intel traded as low as $24.45 over the past 52 weeks and set a record close of $140.94 on Jun. 22.
It then slid to $97.19 on Sept. 14 during a chip selloff, after climbing 183% for the year through Sept. 11.
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