SK Hynix joins Micron in $1 trillion club as AI memory chip rally accelerates - MSN

SK Hynix surged more than 12% on Wednesday, pushing its market valuation to $1 trillion in Asia just hours after peer Micron Technology crossed the same milestone on Tuesday. This marks a significant ... Read original →

The AI-driven surge in HBM demand has fundamentally reshaped memory technology roadmaps. SK Hynix and Micron crossing the $1T valuation threshold signals not just investor recognition of HBM scarcity, but also the accelerating adoption of sub-3nm packaging and EUV in DRAM manufacturing. Upstream, TSMC’s CoWoS bottleneck is forcing Samsung and SK Hynix to vertically integrate 2.5D/3D stacking capabilities, while geopolitical friction around Taiwan, China raises supply chain diversification costs. U.S. CHIPS Act subsidies ease capex burdens, yet tightening export controls compel Micron to reconfigure its China-based test and assembly operations. In response to SK Hynix’s HBM3E lead, Samsung may counter with aggressive pricing plus GDDR7—but its weak logic foundry business undermines synergy. Over the next 18 months, persistent HBM shortages will sustain pricing power, but breakthroughs in CPO or in-memory computing could abruptly invalidate current valuation assumptions.