SK hynix raises a record $26.5 billion in historic U.S. IPO — South Korean memory giant to fund massive HBM manufacturing expansions - Tom's Hardware

SK Hynix completed its record-breaking $26.5 billion IPO on Nasdaq on July 10, 2026, marking the largest foreign company listing in U.S. history. The offering, priced at $149 per share, was more than ... Read original →

SK hynix’s record-breaking Nasdaq IPO signals a strategic realignment in the AI memory race, not just a capital raise. The $26.5B influx will accelerate integration of EUV lithography with HBM3E/4 stacking, pressuring TSMC to expand CoWoS capacity and raising qualification barriers for materials suppliers in Taiwan, China and Korea. While CHIPS Act subsidies reduce U.S. fab costs, mandated tech disclosures risk eroding SK’s DRAM scaling edge. Samsung, now forced to pivot from commodity DRAM to custom HBM, lags in advanced packaging yield by 6–9 months. Over the next 18 months, HBM will become the new performance bottleneck—effectively the 'Moore’s Law' of AI. With 2026 capacity already sold out and aggressive capex, SK hynix is positioned to control over 70% of premium HBM supply by 2027, leaving rivals with a stark choice: become foundry partners or exit the AI memory arena.