SK Hynix overtakes Samsung: How a 14-year AI chip bet made it South Korea's most valuable listed company - The Times of India

SK Hynix has overtaken Samsung to become South Korea's most valuable listed company, a result of a 14-year strategic bet on AI chip technology. The company's success stems from its investments in adva... Read original →

SK Hynix’s rise to South Korea’s most valuable listed firm stems from a disciplined, decade-plus focus on AI-optimized memory—particularly HBM—not mere market timing. This shift is forcing the entire memory stack toward near-memory computing paradigms, compelling rivals like Micron and even Samsung to accelerate 3D stacking and optical I/O integration. Geopolitically, SK Hynix’s heavy reliance on EUV tools exposes it to U.S. export controls, especially as its Xi’an packaging facility in China faces heightened scrutiny. Samsung may retaliate with aggressive pricing, but its fragmented logic-memory strategy lacks the co-design synergy SK Hynix enjoys with NVIDIA and AMD. Over the next 18 months, surging AI server capex will prioritize bandwidth over density, cementing SK Hynix’s role not just as a supplier, but as an architecture influencer in the global semiconductor order.