Solidigm, an American subsidiary of SK hynix, one of the biggest flash chip makers on the planet, is reportedly in talks with the Commerce Department over plans to invest $45 billion in a new plant to be built in the United States. But, Bloomberg reports, there's a catch — Solidigm wants to be given the go-ahead to export equipment to upgrade its existing plant in Dalian, China. The company has purportedly told officials that the upgrades would allow the Chinese plant to then help finance the cost of its U.S.-based counterpart, according to unnamed sources. It's as-yet unclear how the proposal was received, or whether the Commerce Department is inclined to agree to the deal.
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S. government has been keen to drive at-home manufacturing wherever possible, including for chips used in its computers and data centers. National security is regularly cited as a key reason behind the move. It's also the reason for the government's stance on exporting technologies to China, including the equipment that Solidigm says will help upgrade its Dalian plant. Similar export restrictions are in place for high-end AI data center components, with a black market having sprung up to take the place of sanctioned sales. Earlier this month, it was reported that some of Nvidia's powerful Blackwell Ultra B300 GPUs are being used in China Telecom data centers , with no explanation of how they got there.
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