SK Hynix, the $1T+ South Korean memory chipmaker and world's second-largest DRAM supplier, debuts on Nasdaq after 700% rally.
U.S. investors are getting a new way to buy into the memory boom. SK Hynix, the second most valuable company in South Korea behind only Samsung, is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. The market debut, coinciding with the company's substantial expansion plans for the U.S., comes after more than a sevenfold increase in its stock price over the past year, lifting SK Hynix's market cap to approximately $1 trillion.
Most Americans are unfamiliar with SK Hynix, yet they have likely encountered its products extensively. Along with Micron and Samsung, SK Hynix is one of three primary manufacturers of computer memory used in laptops and phones sold by companies such as Apple and Dell. Memory has long occupied a marginal role in the semiconductor market, but this has changed dramatically in recent years as surging artificial intelligence demand has upended the industry, creating severe shortages and driving prices to all-time highs.
SK Hynix leads in high-performance memory used in AI chips from Nvidia, the world's most valuable company. While standard memory components—known as RAM—are relatively simple chips that every computer needs for data storage, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is significantly more complex, stacking many layers of traditional memory together. SK Hynix pioneered this technology and analysts project the company will capture more than half the market this year. In June, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited SK Hynix in Seoul as the two companies announced a multiyear partnership, with Nvidia being the largest HBM buyer. "That advantage has positioned SK Hynix as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the rapid growth in AI infra," said TrendForce analyst Ellie Wang.
SK Hynix will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol SKHY (initially SKHYV). The company plans to raise approximately $29 billion by issuing American depositary receipts to fund new factories and equipment. A significant portion of this buildout is occurring in the U.S., where SK Hynix is constructing its first production facility, scheduled for completion in 2028. The $4 billion plant in West Lafayette, Indiana will focus on advanced packaging, an essential process for HBM production involving the connection and stacking of individual chips into larger systems. SK Hynix expects to receive up to $458 million in funding from the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, passed in 2022, and could also receive up to $570 million in loans from the U.S. Commerce Department.
The broader memory industry is experiencing soaring prices due to AI demand, creating shortages across traditional memory needed for phones, tablets, personal computers, automobiles, medical devices and other products. Profit margins are reaching record levels. More than three-quarters of SK Hynix's revenue comes from RAM, including HBM. The company also manufactures NAND flash memory for hard drives and holds the market leadership position with 19% share in the first quarter, according to IDC.
SK Hynix's financial performance is as striking as its stock price. Annual revenue almost tripled from 2023 to 2025, when sales reached approximately $65 billion. For 2026, analysts polled by LSEG expect that figure to more than triple again to around $235 billion. The company's path to the Nasdaq has not followed a consistent upward trajectory. SK Hynix was founded in 1983 as Hyundai Electronics, a subsidiary of Korean conglomerate Hyundai. In 1997, during a financial crisis, it merged with LG Semicon as memory prices collapsed from oversupply. Four years later, the company rebranded as Hynix Semiconductor, and then became SK Hynix when SK Telecom acquired a controlling stake in 2012. As of March 31, SK Square, which was demerged from SK Telecom in 2021, held a 20.5% interest in the company.
Betting on memory booms carries significant risk due to the cyclical nature of the business. Major technology shifts—from the dot-com frenzy to smartphone growth to the cloud transition—have driven substantial memory demand but often resulted in oversupply and price collapses. This concern is pervasive today given AI's hypergrowth. The industry is attempting to prepare through long-term contracts. SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung are implementing extended agreements that lock in prices and orders years into the future, a departure from past quarterly or annual sales practices. Companies of all sizes, including giants like Apple, are scrambling to secure memory supplies. "These agreements typically require customers to provide longer-term demand visibility," said TrendForce's Wang, "allowing SK Hynix to plan its spending with more confidence."
Analyst Daniel Newman of Futurum Group cautioned that investors must weigh the risks of buying at current levels given history. "This is how memory always acts in any megacycle or supercycle. The problem is, it always crashes hard," he said. However, Newman added that if AI demand remains elevated in coming years, memory companies like SK Hynix could prove to be bargains. Industry experts note that AI requires increasing memory capacity to avoid performance degradation, and memory vendors indicate shortages will persist until at least 2027.
In South Korea, SK Hynix is planning to spend up to $720 billion on facility expansion to meet AI-driven memory demand. A chip fabrication plant cluster in Yongin, just south of Seoul, will cost $390 billion, with the company accelerating the project timeline by more than a decade so that four fabs are now scheduled for completion by 2033. SK Hynix is also expanding production facilities in Cheongju and developing a new fab cluster in the southwestern region of the country. These factories require substantial capital expenditure on extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, which are essential for etching the advanced circuitry needed to manufacture and stack advanced chips like HBM. These machines cost up to $400 million each and are manufactured solely by ASML in the Netherlands. SK Hynix plans to spend approximately $7.8 billion on new EUV machines by the end of 2027.
"If you go to Korea they are building lots of fabs," said MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint. "But it takes time. The earliest time frame that they can bring out manufactured wafers is end of 2027." Beyond its Indiana project, SK Hynix has ambitious expansion plans in the U.S. In January, the company announced it had set aside $10 billion for investments through what it calls AI Company, an initiative to develop new product lines and back U.S. businesses. AI Company's largest component is Solidigm, which manufactures NAND flash memory and was purchased from Intel in 2021 for $9 billion. Now headquartered in Rancho Cordova, California near Sacramento, Solidigm develops new products including solid state drives with increased storage capacity.
Despite these U.S. investments, the bulk of expansion activity remains in South Korea. "Everybody is coming," said Hwang, referring to companies converging on South Korea to sign major contracts. According to Hwang, hotels near SK Hynix facilities are "fully booked" as cloud companies and chipmakers "are all lining up to sign a long-term contract."