Tuesday, June 23, 2026, 11:42 p.m
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SK Hynix has achieved a feat considered almost impossible just a few years ago. The company has exceeded Samsung and became the most valuable company in South Korea. It is the first time the memory maker has overtaken its local rival and ends a dominance that has lasted around a quarter of a century.
The company’s rise has been fueled by the explosion of artificial intelligence and huge demand for high-performance memory used in data centers. SK Hynix is now worth about $1.35 trillion, while Samsung’s valuation is estimated at $1.34 trillion.
Samsung, however, disputes the comparison and claims that its real value would be around $1.46 trillion if all classes of shares are taken into account. Even so, the moment remains a symbolic one for the South Korean industry, as SK Hynix is no longer just a major chip supplier, but the company that has benefited the most from the AI fever.
The bet ignored for years that became central to artificial intelligence
The story is all the more spectacular as the manufacturer was close to bankruptcy in the early 2000s. Micron then analyzed the possibility of a full takeover, and SK Hynix shares at one point reached only $0.088.
The secret of the return is the memory of HBM, o technology which SK Hynix continued to develop even when market interest seemed low. To the general public, HBM became known through the plates video such as AMD Radeon R9 Fury and RX Vega.
After AMD abandoned this solution on its regular products, it seemed that the technology would remain a niche one. However, SK Hynix continued to invest in the enterprise area, where high-bandwidth memory was used for complex applications and Sistema computing performance.
The decision proved decisive with the advent of dedicated AI data centers. Processors used to train models need huge volumes of data transferred very quickly, and HBM has become one of the most sought after COMPONENTS from industry.
