A 10%+ surge in Seoul trading on Wednesday pushed the Korean memory firm past $1 trillion, making it the third chipmaker after Nvidia and TSMC to cross the line.
SK Hynix’s market capitalisation pushed through $1 trillion in Seoul trading on Wednesday morning, on the back of a single-session rally of more than 10% that briefly tripped circuit breakers on South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index.
The Korean memory firm becomes the third chip company ever to cross the trillion-dollar mark, after Nvidia and TSMC, and the first dedicated memory specialist to do so.The milestone arrives at the end of a stretch that has been, by any normal benchmark, structurally implausible.
SK Hynix’s share price has risen roughly 900% over the past 24 months. Last month, the company sat about $50bn below the trillion-dollar threshold; the closing gap reflects how violently the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) cycle has compressed into the company’s books. Full-year 2026 HBM capacity is sold out. Shortages are forecast to persist through 2027.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!The structural anchor is SK Hynix’s position in Nvidia’s supply chain. UBS estimates the company holds roughly 70% of HBM4 orders for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, which Jensen Huang described in Taipei this week as “probably the largest product launch in the history of Taiwan.”
