SK hynix briefly tops Samsung as Korea’s most valuable company—and it's eyeing a U.S. listing as soon as August - Fortune

SK Hynix briefly overtook Samsung to become South Korea's most valuable company, highlighting the surge in demand for semiconductors driven by the AI boom. Despite a sharp drop in its stock price foll... Read original →

SK hynix’s brief ascension as Korea’s top-cap firm reflects the AI infrastructure rush for HBM3e/HBM4, triggering cascading effects: EUV tool lead times are tightening, while NVIDIA now designs GPU dies around HBM stack height. Regulatory risks loom—U.S. export controls on advanced packaging may inflate SK’s China-based assembly costs, and Korean scrutiny of leveraged ETFs reveals dangerous retail concentration. Samsung will likely divert 3nm GAA capacity toward HBM to counter SK’s momentum, while Micron pushes CoWoS-like alternatives to secure NVIDIA’s backup slot. Over the next 18 months, HBM supply chains will become geopolitical flashpoints; any disruption will directly delay AI cluster deployments and redirect global semiconductor capital flows.