SK Hynix raises $26.5B in the biggest foreign IPO in US history, is urged to build new US fabs

SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion in the largest foreign IPO in US history, with shares opening 14% above the offer price. The South Korean memory chip maker, a key supplier to Nvidia, plans to use the funds for new fabs and packaging facilities. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urged SK Hynix and Samsung to build factories in the US to reduce reliance on South Korea.

The AI chip boom just produced its biggest Wall Street moment yet. SK Hynix https://www.skhynix.com/ir/UI-FR-IR12 T1 view/?seq=6809 , a South Korean memory chip giant, said Friday https://www.skhynix.com/ir/UI-FR-IR12 T1 view/?seq=6809 it has raised $26.5 billion KRW 40 trillion in its US market debut. SK Hynix sold 177.9 million American depositary shares ADRs at $149 each, structured so US investors can buy in at roughly a tenth of what a full share costs in Seoul. This deal, the largest-ever US debut by a non-American company, topped Alibaba’s https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1577552/000119312514347620/d709111d424b4.htm $25 billion IPO in 2014. SK Hynix begins trading on the Nasdaq today, Friday, July 10th, under the temporary ticker SKHYV. Regular trading opens Monday, July 13th, when the ticker officially becomes SKHY. So far, US investors are lapping it up. The stock opened at 14% over its IPO price https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SKHYV/ , and the price was still rising in early trading on Friday. This even as it priced its US shares at a 2.7% premium to its own three-day average back home in Seoul, according to its Korea Stock Exchange filing https://dart.fss.or.kr/dsaf001/main.do?rcpNo=20260710000012 . Yet, demand for the offering was reportedly https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-08/sk-hynix-us-offering-is-more-than-seven-times-oversubscribed more than seven times the available shares, per media reports. That’s especially amazing considering Korean companies have long traded at a discount to their global peers. That valuation gap is called the Korea Discount. Investors often cite factors such as complex corporate governance structures, low shareholder returns, regulatory uncertainty, and geopolitical risks related to North Korea to justify why companies from that country don’t command higher share prices. But SK Hynix clearly isn’t suffering from the Korea Discount and that’s because SK Hynix makes memory chips, including high-bandwidth memory HBM . HBM is a key component of AI GPUs processors. And right now, Nvidia relies on SK Hynix as one of its primary suppliers. Per its filing, the money raised from eager US investors will go to three places: a new fab in South Korea being built now to address the worldwide shortage of memory cause by AI ; a new packaging facility in that country; and EUV scanners, the machines that make next-generation chips possible. Meanwhile, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stopped by a Micron event Thursday with a message for the broader chip industry, not just for US memory maker Micron who is one of SK Hynix’s biggest competitors . Lutnick reportedly https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-09/lutnick-presses-sk-hynix-samsung-to-boost-memory-output-in-us said he’s already in talks with Samsung the third major memory maker, worldwide and SK Hynix about building new factories in the U.S. The idea being not to let South Korea continue to be the country that dominates this important tech. Micron, naturally, is in. It announced it plans https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/micron-accelerates-us-investments-pours-first-concrete-new-york to invest $250 billion in new US manufacturing, a commitment the U.S. memory chip company says will create more than 90,000 jobs and keep leading-edge chip production on American soil. The timing of Lutnick’s request is notable beyond this US IPO for SK Hynix: both Korean chipmakers just pledged more than $550 billion https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/29/south-korean-tech-giants-commit-over-550b-to-ease-ramageddon/ for new manufacturing investment in South Korea.