South Korea's SK Hynix surpasses Samsung in market value amid AI chip boom - TRT World

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix briefly surpassed Samsung Electronics in market value, becoming the country's most valuable company. This shift reflects the growing demand for memory chips driven by U... Read original →

SK Hynix’s brief market cap lead over Samsung stems from its decisive edge in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), now essential for AI data centers. While SK mass-produces HBM3E for NVIDIA and Microsoft, Samsung’s overcommitment to GDDR7 left it exposed. This technical divergence is reshaping the supply chain: TSMC is prioritizing CoWoS capacity for SK, reinforcing a new logic-memory co-design paradigm. Geopolitically, U.S. CHIPS Act subsidies ease capex burdens, but new data-localization rules in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, China will raise compliance costs. Samsung will likely divest non-core semiconductor units to refocus on 3nm GAA logic, while Micron leverages IRA funding to scale domestic HBM output as a strategic alternative. Over the next 18 months, the gap before HBM5 standardization will amplify first-mover advantages—yet any slowdown in AI cluster deployment could trigger inventory corrections and price volatility.