Kioxia's Ota rules out SK Hynix tie-up over antitrust

Kioxia's position sits between two pressures the article lays out. Memory chip makers are embarking on costly production capacity increases to meet soaring orders from AI service providers, and those orders are fueling double- or even triple-digit price rises. Investors, including the chair of SK Hynix's parent SK, have suggested manufacturing partnerships could help lower the risk of the huge capital commitments such expansion requires.

That is the backdrop against which CEO Hiroo Ota pushed back on the oft-floated idea of closer ties with SK Hynix. His reasons were specific: antitrust hurdles, and the difficulty of squaring such a tie-up with Kioxia's jointly owned manufacturing facilities with Sandisk. Speaking of prices, Ota did not rule out hikes in the future, but said Kioxia's priority for now was keeping chip prices at their current high levels, on the logic of avoiding damage to long-term artificial intelligence demand.

The tension is that Kioxia wants to hold prices down while the industry's own expansion is expensive. Since the tie-up route appears closed to it, the article notes Kioxia would need to find other ways to restrain runaway memory prices. How well it manages that, without the partnership that some investors floated, is likely to shape both its capital burden and how long AI demand stays strong.