SK Hynix has joined the exclusive trillion-dollar company club. The South Korean memory chip maker's market capitalization surged past $1 trillion, peaking near $1.12 trillion, fueled by insatiable demand for its advanced AI hardware.
The company's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips are critical components inside NVIDIA's graphics processing units, which power artificial intelligence systems globally. This core demand propelled the stock roughly 1,000% over the past year.
SK Group acquired the then-struggling Hynix Semiconductor in 2012 for approximately $3 billion. The strategic pivot to advanced memory solutions has paid off spectacularly, briefly making SK Hynix South Korea's most valuable company, surpassing Samsung.
In a landmark move on July 9, 2026, the company priced its American Depositary Receipts on Nasdaq at $149 each. The offering raised approximately $26.5 billion, making it the largest first-time U.S. listing by a foreign company. This strategic play aims to attract more global investors and narrow the historical valuation gap between Korean and U.S. chipmakers.