From Hyundai offshoot to AI powerhouse: SK Hynix’s unlikely rise
A company once hit by the memory chip collapse has become one of the biggest winners from the artificial intelligence revolution.
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix is capitalizing on the artificial intelligence boom and preparing for what could become one of the largest listings by a foreign company on the U.S. stock market. The company, one of only three manufacturers of advanced memory chips that are in high demand in AI data centers, filed for a Nasdaq listing earlier this week and is reportedly preparing to raise up to $28 billion. On the Seoul Stock Exchange, the company currently trades at a market capitalization of approximately $1.22 trillion.
However, analysts say fundraising is only one objective behind the move. SK Hynix is also seeking to strengthen its presence in the U.S. market, both among investors and customers.
“We are in a period of extreme enthusiasm for chip stocks,” Daniel Morgan of investment firm Synovus Trust, which owns shares in rival chipmaker Micron, told Bloomberg. “It’s a good time to get the U.S. involved in your stocks.”
SK Hynix was founded in 1983 as Hyundai Electronics by Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung. In 1998, the company acquired LG Electronics’ semiconductor business, positioning itself as a direct competitor to Micron in the memory chip market. Following the collapse of the dot-com bubble and an 80% decline in memory chip prices in 2001, Hyundai separated the business, which was renamed Hynix in 2003.
Nine years later, telecommunications giant SK Group acquired the company for approximately $3 billion and renamed it SK Hynix.
For years, the company experienced steady but relatively moderate growth. Then, in 2021, it acquired Intel’s memory chip business for $9 billion, a deal that would prove highly timely. Two years later, the generative AI revolution triggered an unprecedented surge in demand for computing power, creating a parallel boom in demand for advanced memory chips.
Solving AI’s memory bottleneck
AI data centers powered by advanced processors such as Nvidia’s GPUs face a critical bottleneck: traditional memory chips cannot transfer data quickly enough to fully utilize the processors’ computing power.
In September 2024, SK Hynix became the first company to begin mass production of 12-layer high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, helping address one of the biggest challenges facing AI infrastructure.
Competitors Samsung and Micron quickly followed with their own HBM products, but SK Hynix’s early lead allowed it to maintain a dominant position in the market. The company’s valuation surpassed $1 trillion this year.
In June, SK Hynix briefly achieved a historic milestone, becoming the first company in more than 25 years to overtake Samsung as the largest company by market capitalization on the Seoul Stock Exchange. Samsung quickly regained the top position, but its business spans multiple industries, including smartphones, displays, televisions and computers. By contrast, SK Hynix’s value is driven almost entirely by its semiconductor business, making its rise even more remarkable.
The Nasdaq listing is designed to capitalize on global investor appetite for AI-related semiconductor companies while making the stock more accessible to U.S. investors.
Currently, American investors seeking exposure to SK Hynix must either trade on the Seoul Stock Exchange, which creates practical barriers such as different trading hours, or purchase American depositary receipts (ADRs), which are generally less liquid.
A Nasdaq listing would remove many of these obstacles.
“The listing is intended for investors who currently do not have access to Korean stock markets,” Di Zhou of Thornburg Investment Management, which owns shares in SK Hynix, told Bloomberg. “It will provide direct and frictionless exposure to one of the purest companies in the AI memory space.”
AI boom brings opportunity, and risk
SK Hynix is hardly struggling to attract investor attention. Its share price has surged 678% over the past year and has risen 279% since the beginning of 2026.
But the company is entering Nasdaq at a moment of growing uncertainty. Investors are increasingly questioning whether the AI boom has created a speculative bubble and worrying about what could happen if technology giants slow their massive investments in data centers, reducing demand for processors and memory chips.
“Investors are running the risk of getting into what could be a speculative bubble,” Ed O’Gorman, CEO of River Wealth Advisors, said. “You have to be very careful when investing in something that has skyrocketed the way these stocks have skyrocketed.”
Others remain optimistic.
“The volatility in the markets has been quite high recently, but I expect demand for SK Hynix shares to be relatively robust,” Albert Yong of Petra Capital Management told Reuters.
South Korea doubles down on chips
The listing comes as South Korea seeks to reinforce its position as a global semiconductor powerhouse.
Last week, the South Korean government announced an ambitious plan worth approximately half a trillion dollars to build four new memory chip manufacturing facilities in the country’s southwest, led by Samsung and SK Hynix. Most of the investment is expected to come directly from the companies.
The initiative is part of a broader effort to preserve South Korea’s leadership in semiconductor manufacturing amid massive investments in AI infrastructure and chips by the U.S., Taiwan and China.
The decision to build the facilities outside the Seoul metropolitan area reflects concerns that the country’s semiconductor industry has become overly concentrated around the capital. Officials argue that geographic concentration has created an uneven distribution of economic benefits while placing additional strain on infrastructure, including electricity and water supplies.
For SK Hynix, the Nasdaq listing represents the next step in a transformation from a traditional memory chip manufacturer into one of the central beneficiaries of the global AI infrastructure race.
