SK Hynix has become the latest semiconductor company to cross the $1tn valuation threshold, as investors continue to pour money into memory chipmakers powering the artificial intelligence boom.
Shares in rose almost 15% on Wednesday, lifting the South Korean group’s market capitalisation above $1tn for the first time and helping drive Seoul’s Kospi index to a record high.
The rally came just a day after US-based Micron crossed the same milestone, underlining how demand for high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI systems has transformed a once cyclical corner of the semiconductor industry into one of the hottest trades on global markets.
SK Hynix is one of Nvidia’s key suppliers of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips that are essential for training and running generative AI models. Memory chips are now the critical bottleneck for AI infrastructure, determining how fast data centres can scale. Analysts say tightening supply and surging demand from AI data centres have sharply increased prices for advanced memory products.
Profound shift in semiconductor industry
South Korea is now the only country outside the US with more than one trillion-dollar company after Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both crossed the threshold this month.
The simultaneous rise of SK Hynix and Micron into the trillion-dollar tier signals a profound shift in the semiconductor industry. Memory, once treated as a low-margin commodity, has become the defining resource of the AI era.
The concentration of market power among three firms raises questions about resilience and supply security, particularly as demand outpaces capacity. For investors, the valuations reflect both extraordinary optimism and the risk of overheating in a sector where bottlenecks could persist for years.
Chip prices set to go up even more
Memory chip prices doubled in the first quarter and could rise by as much as 63% in the current quarter as AI infrastructure spending strains global supply chains.
The surge has redrawn the global semiconductor hierarchy. Until recently, investor attention had focused largely on AI processor makers such as Nvidia. But Wall Street and Asian markets are increasingly betting that memory manufacturers including SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung Electronics will become some of the biggest long-term beneficiaries of the AI spending race.
