SK Hynix joins the Trillion Dollar Club, uniquely controlling the HBM supply chain discourse

On Wednesday, SK Hynix's stock price soared by over 11% in a single day, propelling the South Korean chipmaker's market value to officially surpass the $1 trillion mark, marking another milestone in the history of South Korea's capital market. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics' market value has also just crossed this threshold, with the two Korean semiconductor giants joining hands to enter the global "trillion-dollar club," reflecting that the strategic value of memory chips in the AI era has been reevaluated by the market.

The rush of investors into AI-related semiconductor stocks is behind a game that is quietly changing the global technology supply chain landscape. Recently, according to South Korean media reports, U.S. tech giants such as Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, and Meta have successively expressed their intention to provide financial support to SK Hynix, willing to offer funding for equipment, including financing the purchase of ASML and other cutting-edge equipment, with the intention of ensuring a stable supply of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) chips, but SK Hynix has politely declined the above proposals.

According to industry insiders, the main strategic considerations for SK Hynix to reject the aforementioned plans are that accepting capital support from customers, even in the form of grants, would essentially make themselves the "exclusive supplier" for the other party, thereby significantly reducing the space for bargaining with other customers in the future and sacrificing the core discourse power over the entire HBM supply chain. In the words of the industry, it means "preferring to be a super vendor rather than a private factory for anyone."

The annual production of ASML's EUV lithography machines is extremely limited, and the high-end models are in short supply, with each unit currently priced at around 50 billion won. SK Hynix is planning to purchase 17 units to expand production capacity, which will form an overwhelming advantage in the field of advanced packaging. Secondary competitors often need to wait for several years to purchase the aforementioned equipment, which is the deep reason why U.S. tech giants are eager to "jump the queue" by securing production capacity through investment.

It is worth noting that while SK Hynix has successively rejected proposals from Google, Microsoft, and Meta, its competitor Samsung Electronics is reportedly actively negotiating similar investment cooperation agreements with U.S. customers.

Analysts believe that companies such as Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft each spend tens of billions of dollars annually on AI infrastructure capital expenditures, and their bargaining chips are extremely powerful. SK Hynix's tough stance not only reflects its irreplaceable position in the HBM market but also reflects the management's high regard for future strategic independence.

In the eyes of analysts, SK Hynix dares to reject the "money sent to the door" by tech giants, and its confidence comes from its unprecedented strong market position. In the fiscal year 2025, the company's annual operating profit surpassed that of Samsung Electronics for the first time, which has been almost unimaginable in recent years in South Korea's semiconductor industry. Currently, SK Hynix accounts for about 57% of the global HBM market revenue and is the most important memory chip supplier for NVIDIA's GPU products, with its market value surpassing the 100 trillion won mark.

At present, SK Hynix is advancing with plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange, intending to raise funds of $6.7 billion to $10 billion through a U.S. stock market IPO to expand production capacity related to HBM and AI infrastructure. This listing plan is expected to be implemented in the second half of 2026, which will further highlight its strategic value as a core global AI memory chip supplier.