SK Hynix Launches $28 Billion Nasdaq IPO

SK Hynix, the world's second-largest maker of semiconductor memory, is launching its initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the United States. The South Korean company, a key supplier of high-bandwidth HBM memory to Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft, aims to raise about $28 billion from investors, making it the second-largest stock offering in history.

Behind the memory boom

SK Hynix is one of three major memory makers, alongside Samsung Electronics and America's Micron Technology, that have seen their valuations surge over the past year on demand from the AI industry. HBM memory, used in accelerators for training and running large language models, has become one of the critical bottlenecks in building AI infrastructure, a shortage the industry has taken to calling "RAMageddon."

SK Hynix shares on the Seoul stock exchange have risen more than 250 percent since the start of the year, and the company's market capitalization passed $1 trillion in May 2026. First-quarter revenue rose 198 percent year over year, reflecting the scale of orders from chipmakers and data centers running AI models.

Where the money will go

Proceeds from the offering are earmarked primarily for expanding production capacity in South Korea and purchasing specialized equipment, including extreme ultraviolet lithography scanners made by the Dutch firm ASML, which are essential for manufacturing the most advanced memory chips. SK Hynix and Samsung have together pledged more than $550 billion in investment in new South Korean factories in response to rising demand from the AI industry.

Investor reaction

Interest in the offering among institutional investors proved strong enough that demand exceeded the number of available shares even before final pricing. Funds that indicated they would buy up to a combined $7 billion in shares included Baillie Gifford Overseas, Coatue Management, and Situational Awareness Partners.

This is a positive signal for the AI trade, Korean chip companies are now in the spotlight. The AI trade is broadening - Dan Ives, technology analyst

The Nasdaq listing is also meant to give US investors easier access to a company that was previously difficult to buy directly, given restrictions on shares listed solely in Seoul.

This is more than just a liquidity event, SK Hynix has been one of the most important companies in the world that most US institutions couldn't easily hold in their portfolios - Dave Mazza, CEO of Roundhill Investments

What it means for the memory market

SK Hynix's Nasdaq debut coincides with a period in which RAM and SSD prices are rising worldwide as production capacity is redirected toward AI servers. For computer hardware makers and companies buying server infrastructure, that means sustained price pressure, and for investors, including those in Poland with access to global equity markets through brokers, a new way to get direct exposure to the AI-driven memory market that was previously available mainly through the Seoul listing.

Final pricing for the offering is set to be determined on Thursday, with the Nasdaq debut scheduled for Friday, July 11, 2026. Analysts stress that the key question for the stock's future performance is whether the current memory demand supercycle holds up in coming quarters or turns out to be a temporary effect of AI infrastructure spending.

Sources: TechCrunch (techcrunch.com), Fortune (fortune.com), Yahoo Finance (finance.yahoo.com), Investing.com (investing.com).