SK Hynix, one of the world's largest memory chipmakers, now generates 65% of its $64.1 billion revenue from the United States. The company's latest earnings show that the surge is driven by demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI data centers — not by cryptocurrency miners.
The US share of SK Hynix's revenue
That 65% figure is a big jump from previous years. It means the US market alone accounts for nearly two-thirds of the South Korean firm's total sales. The company didn't break out exact US revenue in dollars, but at $64.1 billion total, the US slice is roughly $41.7 billion. That's a lot of chips going to American data centers.
AI, not crypto, is the driver
SK Hynix was clear: the buyers are hyperscalers and AI companies, not mining farms. High-bandwidth memory is the key component in Nvidia's H100 and B200 GPUs, which are used for training large language models. Crypto miners, by contrast, use GDDR memory or older HBM in some ASICs, but they're not the ones pushing HBM demand to record levels.
This matters because some observers had speculated that the chip shortage or price increases might be partly due to crypto mining. SK Hynix's data says otherwise. The mining sector is a tiny fraction of the HBM market right now.
For crypto miners, the news is mixed. On one hand, they're not competing with AI for the same high-end memory chips, so there's no supply squeeze from that angle. On the other hand, the AI boom is soaking up fab capacity and driving up prices for advanced packaging, which could indirectly affect the availability of other chip types. But SK Hynix didn't address that directly.
The company's next earnings call is expected in October, where it may provide more detail on customer breakdowns. For now, the message is clear: AI is the engine, and crypto is along for the ride.
