SK hynix raised $26.5 billion on its way to Nasdaq, one of the largest share sales ever on a U.S. exchange. The Korean chipmaker had been public at home for decades. What changed was high-bandwidth memory, the stacked chips that feed data to AI processors. By early 2026 SK hynix held 56.4 percent of that market, and Nvidia was one of its biggest customers. It filed for its American listing in 2026, when every AI data center on earth needed its parts.

Hyundai's Chip Arm

Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung set up Hyundai Electronics in 1983 to make memory chips. After a near collapse, the business was renamed Hynix Semiconductor in 2001. SK Telecom bought it for about $3 billion in February 2012, and it became SK hynix. It ranked second in DRAM and second in NAND flash. Its early bet on HBM, and its 2024 lead in mass-producing 12-layer stacks, made it a main supplier of HBM to Nvidia.

A Second Home in New York

SK hynix priced its American depositary shares at $149 each on July 9, 2026, with each ADS worth one-tenth of a Korean share. The ADSs began trading on Nasdaq as SKHY on July 10. The size of the sale was capped so that SK square, its largest shareholder, kept at least 20 percent of the company. SK hynix still trades in Seoul and on Nasdaq as SKHY.

Cover: Jupiter and Mnemosyne, Jacob de Wit. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for Mnemosyne, goddess of memory (memory chips).