SK Hynix Reaches $1 Trillion Market Value on Surging Demand for AI Memory Chips

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix crossed a $1 trillion market capitalization Monday, becoming only the second Asian company to reach that milestone, as demand for its high-bandwidth memory chips continues to set records.

SK Hynix is the dominant supplier of HBM chips, a specialized type of memory used in AI processors made by Nvidia, AMD, and others. As AI data center spending has surged, so has demand for HBM, which can transfer data far faster than conventional memory.

The company's stock has risen more than 80 percent over the past 12 months. Revenue from HBM chips now accounts for more than 40 percent of total sales.

"We cannot make these chips fast enough," said SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung at an investor briefing last month. The company is building a new HBM production facility in Indiana with $3.87 billion in US government subsidies under the CHIPS Act.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called SK Hynix a critical partner. Nvidia's H200 and Blackwell chips each use multiple HBM stacks, and any supply constraint at SK Hynix would directly affect Nvidia's ability to ship AI systems.

Samsung and Micron are both working to close the gap with SK Hynix in HBM production, but analysts say SK Hynix holds at least an 18-month technology lead.

The $1 trillion milestone puts SK Hynix in the same tier as Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia by market value.