US investors will soon get access to SK Hynix, another memory maker riding the AI boom

South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix plans to sell nearly 17.8 million shares in a U.S. IPO, potentially raising around $28 billion. The company is capitalizing on an AI-fueled memory chip shortage that has driven its first-quarter revenues up nearly 200% and its stock up 260% this year. The listing will give U.S. investors access to another major beneficiary of the AI boom, following Micron's 700% surge.

South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix, rival to Samsung and U.S.-based Micron https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/24/the-memory-chip-crunch-is-paying-off-for-this-u-s-company/ , is planning to sell nearly 17.8 million shares in a U.S. IPO, the company said on Monday https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2120882/000119312526295501/d32785df1a.htm rom32785 6 . Should its shares sell well and there’s indication that they will , the company could raise around $28 billion, based on SK Hynix’s closing share price last Friday in Seoul, Bloomberg reports https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/memory-chipmaker-sk-hynix-kicks-103648704.html . SK Hynix will be offering American depositary receipts ADRs , a type of certificate that lets U.S. investors buy a foreign stock without trading directly on an overseas exchange. Each ADR will represent a tenth of a common share. It is expected to price those securities on Thursday and begin trading on Friday. Like Micron, SK Hynix is riding an AI-fueled boom credited to AI in both sales and stock price. Its first-quarter revenues were up nearly 200% over the same quarter last year, it said, and its stock is up about 260% so far this year. This is because systems that run AI are very memory intensive. As hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle race to build out so-called AI factories, and as new AI data centers multiply nationwide, demand has outpaced supply, creating a shortage of memory chips — including high-bandwidth memory HBM , DRAM, and NAND the different types of chips that store and move data inside AI systems . The situation has been called “ RAMageddon https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/as-tim-cook-steps-down-apple-hit-record-sales-but-a-chip-shortage-looms/ .” Apple executives said the shortage is forcing it to raise prices on Mac computers and iPads https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/25/apple-raises-mac-and-ipad-prices-spares-iphone-for-now/ . South Korean tech companies, led by SK Hynix and Samsung, have vowed to spend over $550 billion https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/29/south-korean-tech-giants-commit-over-550b-to-ease-ramageddon/ on building out new manufacturing capacity to keep up. That’s actually a risky venture. By the time those facilities are built, memory needs for AI may change, leaving them with more supply than the market wants and, potentially, crashing prices. But for now, Wall Street is looking for another Nvidia, and memory chipmakers are among the closest options https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/28/why-wall-street-thinks-us-memory-maker-micron-is-the-next-nvidia/ that they have. Micron, the closest U.S. comparison, has shot up nearly 700% over the past year to a more than $1 trillion valuation, fueled by record AI-driven memory demand and revenue.