SK Hynix became the latest beneficiary of the artificial-intelligence boom, with its market capitalization crossing the $1 trillion mark for the first time. The South Korean memory-chip maker saw its shares rally as investors bet on sustained demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI data centers.
What drove the milestone
The company's stock has more than doubled over the past year, driven by expectations that AI workloads will require ever more specialized memory chips. SK Hynix is a leading supplier of HBM3 and HBM3E — the advanced memory stacked directly alongside AI processors like Nvidia's H100 and Blackwell GPUs. Analysts tracking the sector note that the company commands a dominant share in this niche, making it a direct proxy for AI hardware spending.
Revenue from HBM products now accounts for a growing slice of SK Hynix's total sales, and the company has said it is sold out for 2024 and most of 2025. That scarcity has pushed prices higher and boosted margins, even as the broader memory market cycles through its usual ups and downs.
SK Hynix's role in the AI chip ecosystem
While much of the AI chip narrative has centered on Nvidia's processors, the memory chips that feed them data are equally critical. SK Hynix's HBM chips are stacked vertically to squeeze more bandwidth into a smaller footprint — a design that AI accelerators rely on to move data quickly between memory and compute units. The company was an early mover on HBM, partnering closely with Nvidia to tailor products for each new GPU generation.
That partnership has paid off. SK Hynix's market cap now rivals that of established South Korean giants like Samsung Electronics, though it remains below Samsung's roughly $370 billion valuation. The milestone underscores how a single technology wave can lift a mid-tier supplier into the trillion-won club — a symbol of national pride in South Korea, where the won is the local currency.
SK Hynix is already investing heavily to expand HBM production capacity. It broke ground on a new packaging plant in Indiana earlier this year and is ramping output at its existing facilities in South Korea. The company faces competition from Samsung and Micron, both of which are racing to catch up in HBM. Samsung recently said it expects to supply HBM3E to a major customer by the end of the 2024 third quarter, signaling that the market may soon get more crowded.
For now, SK Hynix holds the lead. Its next quarterly earnings report, due in late October, will show whether profit growth has kept pace with the stock's rally. Investors will also watch for any signs that AI spending is slowing — a risk that could hit the entire chip supply chain.
