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

South Korean representation spot shaper SK Hynix, rival to Samsung and U.S.-based Micron, is readying to merchantability astir 17.8 cardinal shares successful a U.S. IPO, the institution said connected Monday. Should its shares merchantability good (and there’s denotation that they will), the institution could rise astir $28 billion, based connected SK Hynix’s closing stock terms past Friday successful Seoul, Bloomberg reports.

SK Hynix volition beryllium offering American depositary receipts (ADRs), a benignant of certificate that lets U.S. investors bargain a overseas banal without trading straight connected an overseas exchange. Each ADR volition correspond a tenth of a communal share. It is expected to terms those securities connected Thursday and statesman trading connected Friday.

Like Micron, SK Hynix is riding an AI-fueled roar credited to AI successful some income and banal price. Its archetypal 4th revenues were up astir 200% implicit the aforesaid 4th past year, it said, and its banal is up astir 260% truthful acold this year. This is due to the fact that systems that tally AI are precise representation intensive. As hyperscalers similar Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle contention to physique retired alleged AI factories, and arsenic caller AI information centers multiply nationwide, request has outpaced supply, creating a shortage of representation chips — including High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), DRAM, and NAND (the antithetic types of chips that store and determination information wrong AI systems). The concern has been called “RAMageddon.” Apple executives said the shortage is forcing it to rise prices connected Mac computers and iPads.

South Korean tech companies, led by SK Hynix and Samsung, person vowed to walk implicit $550 billion connected gathering retired caller manufacturing capableness to support up. That’s really a risky venture. By the clip those facilities are built, representation needs for AI whitethorn change, leaving them with much proviso than the marketplace wants and, potentially, crashing prices. But for now, Wall Street is looking for different Nvidia and memory spot makers are among the closest options that they have.

Micron, the closest U.S. comparison, has changeable up astir 700% implicit the past twelvemonth to a more than $1 trillion valuation, fueled by grounds AI-driven representation request and revenue.