SK Hynix's $3.8B West Lafayette Chip Plant: Construction Exposure Your Contractors Need to Know

SK Hynix's $3.8 billion high-bandwidth memory facility in West Lafayette is being fast-tracked, with above-ground construction targeted for later in 2026 and mass production slated for the second half of 2028. A resident petition filed in late 2025, centered on the Purdue Research Foundation's role in structuring the land deal outside standard municipal transparency requirements, is still in hearing in Tippecanoe County Court.

SK Hynix holds roughly 62% of the global HBM market and is a primary supplier to Nvidia. This facility is the US production anchor for that relationship. If the resident petition delays construction materially, the 2028 production ramp slips. On the contractor side, the CHIPS Act award requires either a project labor agreement or 15% registered apprenticeship utilization. This is the largest single development project in Indiana history, if your contractors aren't tracking those compliance requirements, they're already behind. Water demand alone, nearly 4 million gallons per day, will require Indiana American Water to file for source capacity expansion, and that cost recovery will hit the broader customer class across the greater Lafayette region.