South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix has raised $26.5 billion in a New York share offering, marking the largest-ever listing by a foreign firm in the US and one of the biggest equity raises in history. The company, a key supplier of high‑bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to Nvidia and other AI players, sold 177.9 million American depositary shares (ADS) at $149 each, with the stock jumping as much as 17% on its first day of trading on Nasdaq.
SK Hynix’s surge reflects the broader AI infrastructure boom that has transformed it into one of the world’s most valuable chipmakers. Its market value topped $1 trillion in Seoul in May, making it the first dedicated memory specialist to join the trillion‑dollar club. The company’s share price has more than tripled in South Korea this year, helping lift the benchmark Kospi index by more than 70% alongside Samsung Electronics. Shares in rivals Samsung and Micron have more than doubled in recent months, underscoring how hundreds of billions of dollars in AI spending are flowing through the memory and data‑center supply chain.
The listing comes as the IMF highlights AI infrastructure investment as a key factor insulating tech‑heavy economies like South Korea from global shocks, including growth headwinds linked to conflicts in the Middle East. By listing in the US, SK Hynix gains easier access to deep pools of capital with fewer constraints than in its home market, according to Seoul National University finance professor Jaewon Choi, who describes the deal as a “yardstick” for testing whether investor enthusiasm for memory chip makers will remain strong.
Investor demand for the offering was reportedly more than seven times the number of shares available, highlighting intense appetite for exposure to a central player in the AI supply stack. That demand allowed SK Hynix to price the ADS at a 2.9% premium to its current Seoul‑traded stock, rather than the typical discount often used to entice overseas investors. Each ADS represents one‑tenth of a common share listed in Korea, giving US investors a direct way to own SK Hynix without trading on foreign exchanges.
The equity raise is intended to support major capital programmes to expand SK Hynix’s chipmaking and AI capabilities. South Korea’s government has announced more than $880 billion in planned investments in partnership with SK Hynix and Samsung, as part of a broader strategy to cement the country’s role at the centre of global semiconductor and AI supply chains. SK Hynix has pledged large investments in new plants and advanced memory technologies, using proceeds from the US listing to finance facilities that will produce next‑generation HBM and related products.
At the same time, the move carries strategic implications for South Korea’s domestic markets. Hanyang University professor Yun Youngjin notes that while policymakers may expect US fundraising to feed back into local investment, a high‑profile Nasdaq listing also risks drawing capital away from Korean equities as global investors rotate into ADRs. Both SK Hynix and Samsung now sit in the $1 trillion‑plus valuation bracket, alongside Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet, illustrating how AI spending has reshaped the upper tier of global technology and semiconductor markets.
The SK Hynix deal lands amid a wider rush of AI‑linked companies tapping public markets. In June, SpaceX’s GrokAI business became the largest stock listing ever, raising $85.7 billion. AI developers Anthropic and OpenAI are also preparing for public offerings at valuations above $1 trillion, signalling that investor conviction in AI infrastructure and model providers remains extremely high.
