South Korean chip manufacturer SK Hynix achieved a historic milestone on Wednesday, May 27, as its stock price surged 11% to push its market capitalization past the $1 trillion mark. According to reports from Business Standard, this achievement makes SK Hynix the third Asian company to join the $1 trillion club, following domestic rival Samsung Electronics which crossed the same milestone earlier this month. The latest surge brings SK Hynix's total gains to more than 1,000% for the past 12 months, demonstrating exceptional investor confidence in the company's AI infrastructure positioning. The breakneck surge in memory-chip stocks reflects investors' bet that the AI boom will lead to a sustained revaluation of the industry.
The stock's remarkable performance extends beyond the recent milestone, with SK Hynix delivering 250% gains in just the first five months of 2026. As reported by Business Standard, this surge has been driven by investors piling into the AI theme and stocks contributing to AI infrastructure development. The company's strong performance reflects the growing demand for high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI servers and accelerators, positioning it well within the global AI supply chain. With the latest 11% surge on Wednesday, the stock continues to demonstrate exceptional momentum in the AI infrastructure sector, with investors and analysts expecting memory shortages to last through 2027, giving memory chipmakers unusual pricing power over the world's largest technology companies.
According to Counterpoint Research data reported by Business Standard, SK Hynix controlled 57% of global HBM market share by revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025, significantly ahead of Samsung at 22% and Micron at 21%. The company has emerged as a key supplier to Nvidia, currently the most valuable company in the world, becoming a cornerstone of the global AI supply chain. In April, SK Hynix reported a five-fold jump in quarterly profit, while anticipating that HBM demand will exceed supply in the next three years. The company has filed to list American depositary receipts this year, which would rank among the biggest New York debuts by a foreign company, giving American investors another way to play the AI memory trade.
The strong performance of SK Hynix has contributed significantly to the Korean market's exceptional gains, with Korea's Kospi index jumping as much as 5% on Wednesday, prompting the Korea Exchange to briefly halt program buying. As reported by Business Standard, the surge echoed a chipmaker-driven rally on Wall Street overnight and broader advances across Asian equities. Wednesday marked the debut of South Korea's first single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds, with more than a dozen tied to Samsung or SK Hynix. One SK Hynix ETF designed to deliver twice the performance of the underlying stock jumped 24% in early trading, while a Samsung ETF surged 15%, according to exchange data. Despite their rapid ascent, SK Hynix shares trade at six times one-year forward earnings, compared with 27 times for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.
