On July 11, Bloomberg reported that on Friday, South Korean memory chip behemoth SK Hynix accomplished the largest initial public offering (IPO) by a foreign company in the history of the U.S. stock market. Its share price skyrocketed by 13% on the very first day, pushing its total market capitalization to $1.22 trillion. The $26.5 billion raised through this IPO eclipsed Alibaba’s $21.8 billion fundraising in 2014, securing its place as the second-largest stock issuance in U.S. history.

The fundamental reasoning behind these market bets is that AI technology is upending the traditional cycle of the memory chip industry, spurring an explosive demand for high-end chips like High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). As the world’s foremost HBM supplier, SK Hynix witnessed a staggering 398% year-on-year surge in net profit during the first quarter of 2026, achieving an unprecedented operating profit margin of 72%.

The demand for HBM in AI servers is escalating at an annual rate of 300%, with the DRAM configuration per AI server being 8 to 10 times greater than that of traditional servers. By 2026, data centers are projected to account for 70% of the global memory capacity consumption.