When South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix begins trading on Wall Street this Friday, it will be one of the world’s biggest moments in recent years. Already listed on Seoul’s Kospi index with a market capitalisation of more than $1 trillion, the company is set to raise about $28-29 billion through American depositary receipts (ADRs) on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SKHY However, the road to Wall Street began not in a semiconductor lab, but on a construction site.
A construction company that became a chipmaker
SK Hynix traces its origins to 1949, when it was founded as Gukdo Construction. More than three decades later, in 1983, it entered the semiconductor business as Hyundai Electronics, making microchips, phones and disk drives under the Hyundai group.
The company expanded extensively after Hyundai acquired LG Group’s chip business during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, creating one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers. However, the merger also saddled it with massive debt and losses.
After a painful restructuring, the company was renamed Hynix Semiconductor in 2001, a name combining “high” and “electronics” and separated from Hyundai later that year. It narrowly survived a collapse in memory chip prices with the help of creditor banks, however a proposed sale to Micron Technology in 2002 eventually fell through.
A risky bet that totally changed the trajectory
Years of financial struggles left Hynix unable to match the spending power of bigger rivals. In 2012, telecom giant SK Group acquired the company for about $3 billion, giving birth to today’s SK Hynix.
Many questioned the step, especially as Samsung Electronics dominated the global DRAM market.
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won later explained the rationale in a book, writing, “What I really wanted to accomplish when we acquired Hynix was to transform it from a commodity memory producer into a mainstream semiconductor company whose products are indispensable.”
Inside the company, executives knew they needed a completely different strategy. Former HR executive Hyun Sun-yeop recalled, “We believed that it would be impossible to overcome Samsung in commodity DRAM products. We were desperate to change the market dynamics. We needed a breakthrough,” according to Reuters.
Betting on a technology few believed in
However this breakthrough came through high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a specialised memory chip capable of moving data much faster than conventional memory.
SK Hynix launched the world’s first HBM chip with AMD in 2014. But its second-generation product struggled, allowing Samsung to regain ground. Weak demand from Nvidia and cryptocurrency miners in 2019 left a new packaging facility underutilised, and Reuters reported that the company even debated abandoning HBM altogether.
Shim Dae-yong, who led HBM development, later told Reuters, “It was a headache back in 2019. It was obsolete.” Instead of pulling back, SK Hynix doubled down, investing in new production capacity and improving the technology long before demand arrived.
The AI boom transforms SK Hynix
But that gamble paid off after ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022 triggered an explosion in artificial intelligence investment. HBM chips suddenly became one of the world’s most sought-after technologies because they power Nvidia’s AI accelerators, the chips used to train and run advanced AI models. SK Hynix emerged as Nvidia’s biggest HBM supplier.
“No one expected the HBM market would post such explosive growth, Shim said. “But we were ready in terms of performance and capacity.” In September 2024, the company became the first to mass-produce 12-layer HBM chips, widening its lead over Samsung and Micron.
This continued into 2025, when SK Hynix briefly overtook Samsung to become the world’s largest DRAM maker. Seoul National University business administration professor Shin Jae-yong told Reuters, “No one would ever have imagined that SK Hynix would overtake Samsung. It is almost impossible for a runner-up to catch up with the market leader in this capital-intensive industry, which requires massive investment. HBM was the powerful driver behind how they turned the tables.”
From Seoul to Wall Street
The AI boom has massively increased investor confidence in SK Hynix. Its shares have climbed approximately 250% so far in 2026 and in June it briefly surpassed Samsung to become South Korea’s most valuable listed company for the first time in over 25 years. Now the company is taking its next step by listing on Nasdaq, where it expects to raise as much as $29 billion.
The proceeds will fund new chip factories, including a semiconductor cluster in South Korea’s southwest and a $4 billion advanced-packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana, expected to be completed in 2028.
Jim Handy, a semiconductor analyst at Objective Analysis, told AFP that “SK Hynix noticed that its multiples on the Korean Exchange were lower than those of equivalent companies listed on the US exchanges,” adding that the Nasdaq listing “is a smart move to correct that.”
Di Zhou of Thornburg Investment Management told Bloomberg the listing “is intended for investors who currently do not have access to Korean stock markets” and “will provide direct and frictionless exposure to one of the purest companies in the AI memory space.”
The next chapter
Even as it prepares for its Wall Street debut, SK Hynix is continuing to expand aggressively. The company plans to invest up to $720 billion in South Korea, including a massive semiconductor cluster in Yongin scheduled for completion by 2033, alongside billions more on advanced EUV lithography equipment. In the United States, it has earmarked $10 billion for its AI Company unit, built around Solidigm, the NAND flash business it acquired from Intel in 2021.
Not everyone believes the rally can continue indefinitely.
“Investors are running the risk of getting into what could be a speculative bubble,” said Ed O’Gorman, CEO of River Wealth Advisors to CTech.
Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman has given a similar warning, “This is how memory always acts in any megacycle or supercycle. The problem is, it always crashes hard.”
Albert Yong of Petra Capital Management told Reuters, “The volatility in the markets has been quite high recently, but I expect demand for SK Hynix shares to be relatively robust.”
Disclaimer: This article provides factual analysis only and is not, and should not be construed as, an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell securities. Investors must conduct their own independent due diligence and seek advice from a registered financial advisor in the respective jurisdiction.