Solidigm, the flash-memory maker owned by South Korea’s SK Hynix, has put a striking offer in front of the US Commerce Department: build what would be America’s first major new NAND flash production facility in years, worth as much as $45 billion, but only after Washington signs off on sending upgraded equipment to the company’s existing plant in Dalian, China.
The pitch, as described to US officials, links the two sites directly. Solidigm wants to modernise its Dalian facility first, arguing that the revenue generated from the upgraded Chinese plant would help finance construction of the new American one. The enhanced manufacturing technology installed in China would, according to the company, also eventually be deployed at the US site once it is built.
That sequencing puts the Commerce Department in an uncomfortable spot. Export controls have made it increasingly difficult for US and allied chipmakers to send advanced equipment to Chinese facilities, out of concern that the technology could narrow Beijing’s gap in strategic semiconductor manufacturing. Solidigm’s proposal effectively asks regulators to loosen that restriction in exchange for a commitment to invest tens of billions of dollars domestically.
New York State has emerged as one of the leading candidates for the new facility, with construction potentially starting as early as next year if the deal comes together. A plant of that scale would mark a rare instance of major new flash-memory manufacturing capacity being built on US soil, an area where domestic production has lagged well behind Asian manufacturing hubs.
Solidigm itself is a product of the last wave of chip-industry consolidation: SK Hynix acquired Intel's NAND memory and storage business in a deal that closed in stages between 2021 and 2025, rebranding the unit as Solidigm. The Dalian plant at the centre of the current negotiations was part of that same Intel legacy, making its fate a recurring flashpoint in broader US-China tech tensions.
The proposal lands as Washington continues to balance two competing priorities: restricting China's access to cutting-edge chipmaking technology while also trying to pull memory and semiconductor investment back onto American soil. Solidigm's offer effectively asks for a one-time exception to the first goal in service of the second, a trade the Commerce Department has not yet indicated whether it is willing to make.
For now, the $45 billion US plant remains conditional. Solidigm has made clear that moving forward on the American facility depends on getting the green light for the Dalian upgrade, leaving the fate of what could be a landmark investment in US chip manufacturing in the hands of export-control regulators rather than the company's own balance sheet.
