17/09/2026

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | SEPT 17, 2026

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SK Hynix, Intel said in talks on deal to make chips in US

Australian builder Bathla owes A$3b to over 40 lenders, documents show SYDNEYL Australian home builder Bathla Group was “highly leveraged” when it went into administration, owing around A$3 billion (RM8.7 billion) to more than 40 lenders, new documents lodged with the corporate regulator showed. It also owed around A$400 million to tax authorities, workers and other unsecured creditors, administrators of the group said in minutes of the first creditors’meeting held on Sept 4. The documents were filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Tuesday. The figures paint the clearest picture yet of the company’s reliance on private lenders to finance its expansive land purchases and developments, highlighting the risks of Australia’s booming A$200 billion private credit sector. “Based on investigations to date, the group was highly leveraged, with more than 40 lenders and approximately A$3 billion owing under facilities to private creditors, which appeared to have been a significant contributing factor,“ the minutes said. Bathla declined to comment through its administrators. Administrators last month took control of Bathla, one of Australia’s most prolific affordable housing developers which operates mainly in Sydney’s western suburbs, to manage its debt pile. Bathla is composed of more than 500 individual companies that had “limited to no cash available to meet ongoing operating costs” when it collapsed, the minutes said. – Reuters CENTRE IN AUSTRALIA SYDNEY: Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic signed a deal yesterday for its first Australian data centre, the premier of Queensland state announced in parliament. David Crisafulli said the company behind the Claude large-language model would set up in a new digital park expected to open next year. The data centre would deliver more jobs and electricity to the northern state, he added, seeking to ease com munity concern over a boom in AI data centre construction. Anthro pic could not immediately be reached for comment. – AFP BRITISH INFLATION PICKS UP TO 5-MONTH HIGH IN AUGUST LONDON: British inflation acce lerated to a five-month high of 3.1% in August, but measures excluding surging energy prices held stable, official figures showed yesterday, a day before the Bank of England is expected to keep interest rates on hold. The increase in the annual headline rate was in line with forecasts by economists polled by Reuters, who predicted it would be impacted by the resumption of conflict in the Gulf. Further increases are likely in the coming months when domestic energy bills – which track global market prices with a lag – go up. – Reuters ANTHROPIC INKS DEAL FOR ITS FIRST DATA

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“national core technology”, it would be subject to a review under the Industrial Technology Protection Act. The US Commerce Department did not respond to a request for comment. Manufacturing semiconductors in the US costs much more than in South Korea, according to two of the sources. Building in the United States entails significantly higher labour and construction costs, and much of the semiconductor industry’s supply chain is located within Asia, which also increases US costs, one of them said. Even so, SK Hynix, which recently completed a secondary listing on the Nasdaq in July and currently only has a chip packaging facility under construction in Indiana, has good reasons to pursue fabricating chips in the United States. Chey Tae-won, chairman of the SK Group conglomerate that SK Hynix is part of, said in July that the company faces enormous pressure and lobbying from customers and countries to supply more chips. “I think we need to build a factory in the United States. If possible, I believe we should build it,” he told reporters. A deal with SK Hynix would also ease some of the financial strain on Intel, which is part-owned by the US government. Intel announced in 2022 that it would invest up to US$100 billion (RM408 billion) to build potentially the world’s largest chipmaking complex in Ohio, with production scheduled to begin in 2025. But completion of the site’s two plants has since been delayed to 2030 and 2031. – Reuters

o South Korean company might lease part of American tech giant’s facility in Ohio or form venture with it and cloud firms, sources say

SEOUL/WASHINGTON: South Korea’s SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about a deal that would see it manufacture memory chips on USsoil for the first time, three people familiar with the discussions said. Under one potential scenario, SK Hynix would lease part of Intel’s long-planned chipmaking facility in Ohio, they said. Under another scenario, it could form a venture with Intel and major cloud firms that are keen to lock in memory chip supplies, two of the people said. A deal would relieve pressure on Intel, which has been struggling, and mark a big win for the Trump administration, which has been ramping up pressure on chipmakers to build in the United States as relentless investment in AI and data centres fuels an acute shortage of memory chips. But potential opposition from Seoul could be a major hurdle, the sources said. One of the sources described the talks as exploratory and stressed that no decisions have been made, adding that SK Hynix might also consider other ways to structure the deal. Details about how a SK Hynix-Intel deal might be structured are being reported for the first time. Reuters was, however, not able to

learn what types of chips SK Hynix may manufacture in Ohio if an agreement is struck. Its product lineup includes DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) chips used in servers, PCs and smartphones and NAND flash memory chips that provide long-term storage memory. It is also the leading supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI processing units. Any agreement to produce advanced memory such as HBM or even DRAM could run into opposition from the South Korean government as those technologies are considered sensitive, said the three sources who declined to be identified as the information is not public. SK Hynix said in a statement to Reuters that it is “reviewing various measures, including establishing additional production bases, to strengthen the competitiveness of its memory business”, but “no matters have been determined at this stage”. Intel declined to comment on what it called speculation, but added that it was continuing with investments in Ohio to ready the site. Asked about a potential SK Hynix plan to produce chips in the US, South Korea’s trade ministry said any decision would be at the company’s discretion but if it involved a

Tourists taking pictures of the city’s skyline from Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. The five year plan’s major aims include solidifying Hong Kong’s financial,

maritime and trade areas. – REUTERSPIC

Hong Kong unveils first five-year plan HONG KONG: Hong Kong leader John Lee unveiled the city’s first five-year plan yesterday, aiming to boost residents’livelihoods and cement its position as a global financial hub, while beefing up technology ties with the mainland. The sweeping plan, which follows two months of government consultations with lawmakers and residents, spans areas from the economy to jobs, education and health, as Lee promised to add 196,000 public housing units within five years. The government would encourage “upward mobility”, Lee added, and “enhance the housing ladder to promote home ownership among young people” in Hong Kong, where scarce land supply puts home purchases out of reach for many. The plan also envisages speeding development of the 30,000-hectare Northern Metropolis, near the mainland China border, as a new growth engine, bolstering technological links and ties with the mainland to add jobs and homes. When complete, Lee said, it would be ideal for living, work and travel, “further boosting Hong Kong’s overall competitiveness and momentum for sustainable development”. The strategy comes after Beijing approved a national five-year plan in March for the years to 2030, in China’s latest typical exercise laying out an official road map for social and economic development. Highlighting his policy objectives, Lee said Hong Kong would officially launch the first central clearing and settlement system for gold in the first quarter of 2027. The city’s Monetary Authority plans to implement central bank digital currency

settlement by the end of this year, he added. The five-year plan’s major aims include solidifying Hong Kong’s financial, maritime and trade areas, accelerating efforts in information and technology and strengthening its role as a global offshore renminbi hub. Hong Kong will act as a “super connector” and integrate with China’s Greater Bay Area, Lee said. “We will expedite the alignment with key national strategies in technology,“ he said. The focus would be on areas ranging from lifestyle and healthcare to AI and robotics, microelectronics, new energy, advanced manufacturing and new materials, he added. Hong Kong will also strengthen efforts to develop itself into a centre for international legal and dispute resolution services, Lee said. – Reuters