South Korea’s SK Hynix hit a market valuation above $1 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, joining Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology in the exclusive club of memory chipmakers riding the AI hardware boom.
Shares of SK Hynix surged nearly 15% in a single session, pushing its market cap to a record 1,680 trillion won, roughly $1.12 trillion. The rally helped lift South Korea’s KOSPI index to an all-time high of 8,457, a 5% single-day gain that triggered a temporary algorithmic trading halt.
Three Chipmakers, One Catalyst
The trigger is straightforward: AI infrastructure spending is driving unprecedented demand for high-bandwidth memory chips. Nvidia’s AI accelerators require large volumes of advanced memory, and only three companies in the world can supply them at scale. SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron now control that bottleneck.
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Memory chip prices doubled in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the prior period. Analysts forecast a further climb of up to 63% in the current quarter as data centre buildouts continue to squeeze supply for consumer devices including smartphones, laptops, and automobiles.
Samsung crossed the $1 trillion threshold on May 6. Micron hit the milestone just one day before SK Hynix. The milestone makes South Korea the first country outside the United States to have more than one company in the trillion-dollar club, alongside Taiwan’s TSMC.
Analyst Targets Revised Sharply Higher
Mirae Asset Securities analyst Kim Young-gun raised price targets for both Korean chipmakers this week, citing expectations that memory chip demand will continue to outpace supply through at least 2028. SK Hynix received an 18.8% target increase to 3.8 million won per share. Samsung’s target was lifted 14.6% to 550,000 won.
UBS went further on Micron, more than tripling its price target, attributing the move to structural changes AI has driven across the entire memory segment.
Year-to-date, the gains have been substantial. Micron shares are up 245%. SK Hynix is up 215%. Samsung has risen 149%. The KOSPI itself has surged 91% in 2026, after posting a 76% gain in 2025, making it the top-performing major index globally across this period.
Retail Investor Momentum
US retail investors have poured billions into new ETFs providing exposure to Samsung and SK Hynix in recent weeks. South Korea launched its first single-stock leveraged ETFs tied to both chipmakers on Wednesday. The products posted double-digit gains on debut. Demand was strong enough to crash the Korea Financial Investment Association’s website, which hosts the mandatory courses retail investors must complete before purchasing leveraged ETFs.
A union wage agreement at Samsung also removed a near-term risk. Workers voted to approve a tentative deal, averting a strike that had raised concerns about disruption to global chip supply chains.
What It Means for Markets
With Samsung and SK Hynix now accounting for roughly half of the KOSPI by market cap, South Korea’s equity index has effectively become a proxy for the global AI infrastructure trade. Investors looking for exposure to AI hardware beyond US-listed names now have a concentrated, liquid route through Korean chip equities.
The supply-demand math remains in favour of the chipmakers for the foreseeable future. Until AI data centre expansion slows or new memory capacity comes online at scale, the pricing environment for high-end memory stays tight
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