SK Hynix surpassed Samsung as South Korea's most valuable company for the first time in 26 years - qz.com

SK Hynix overtook Samsung Electronics to become South Korea's most valuable listed company, ending a 26-year reign. This shift highlights SK Hynix's dominance in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market... Read original →

SK Hynix overtaking Samsung marks a fundamental reshaping of the AI hardware value chain. Its HBM3E has become indispensable for NVIDIA’s GB200 supercomputers, compelling TSMC to accelerate CoWoS advanced packaging capacity and cementing a ‘HBM + advanced packaging’ tech loop. This pressures Samsung to shift from DRAM price wars to HBM yield optimization. While U.S. CHIPS Act compliance and export controls raise SK’s operational costs, its planned NASDAQ ADR listing mitigates geopolitical financing risks. With Micron racing toward HBM4 and Taiwan, China suppliers entering the HBM ecosystem, SK must convert its current tech lead into standard-setting power. Over the next 18 months, HBM will migrate from AI training exclusivity to edge inference—dominance in JEDEC HBM4 specification could lock in SK’s market cap lead as a structural moat.