SK Hynix: South Korean chip company joins the $1 trillion club with Micron and Samsung

Summary

SK Hynix has joined Samsung and Micron in reaching a $1 trillion market cap this week.
The AI boom has driven unprecedented demand for memory chips, leading to record profits for South Korean companies.
The global AI boom has also triggered a debate on whether enough is being done to share bumper profits with workers.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

South Korean semiconductor giant SK Hynix became one of the few companies in the world with a $1 trillion market cap this week, as a global AI boom continues to propel chip stocks to record levels.

The memory chip maker’s rise follows that of its competitors: Samsung Electronics and Micron, a US semiconductor manufacturer which also hit $1 trillion earlier this week. The three companies combined account for nearly all of the world’s production of memory chips.

Just a few years ago, memory chips were an older, largely overlooked corner of the wider semiconductor industry. Many tech leaders and investors were focused on the development of advanced processing chips like the ones designed by Nvidia and produced by TSMC, companies which are both also worth more than $1 trillion.

But the rush to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools and infrastructure has boosted demand for memory storage as well, leading to a global shortage of the kind of semiconductors that provide it.

Both Samsung and SK Hynix, South Korea’s two largest companies, have reported record profits in the first quarter of the year. But a disparity in bonuses compared with SK Hynix led Samsung workers to protest and threaten to strike for 18…

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