SK Hynix has overtaken Samsung Electronics in market capitalisation on the Korea Exchange for the first time since November 2000, driven by its dominance in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in Nvidia AI accelerators. By midday trading, SK Hynix common shares were valued at roughly 2,057 trillion won versus Samsung's 2,051 trillion. SK Hynix has been Nvidia's principal HBM partner and already surpassed Samsung in annual profit in January. Samsung is still working to qualify its own HBM for Nvidia and is expected to win HBM4 orders, but currently trails. Together, the two chipmakers account for roughly half of the KOSPI's total value, making the index highly sensitive to memory demand cycles. A planned US ADR listing for SK Hynix has also contributed to its recent share price run.
