SK Hynix has filed with the SEC to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker SKHY, seeking to raise roughly $28 billion in what would rank as the second-largest share sale on record.
The filing lands at a strange moment. Just as some investors start asking out loud whether AI infrastructure spending can keep growing at its current pace, SK Hynix is asking Wall Street to bet tens of billions of dollars that it can't slow down fast enough to hurt them. According to Reuters, the South Korean chipmaker submitted an amended Form F-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 30, targeting a dual listing that would let it sell American depositary shares alongside its existing Seoul-listed stock. Trading is expected to begin as soon as July 10.
The mechanics are specific enough to matter. SK Hynix plans to issue about 17.79 million new common shares in the form of ADSs, with ten ADSs representing one common share, and Reuters reported the individual ADSs were expected to price near $166 each. BofA Securities, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are running the deal as global coordinators. Put the pieces together and you get a raise Reuters pegged at roughly $28 billion, with some outlets citing figures closer to $29.4 billion depending on the final exchange rate and pricing. Either way, it would trail only SpaceX's $85.7 billion offering last month and would top both Saudi Aramco's $25.6 billion IPO in 2019 and Alibaba's 2014 listing.
Money this size needs a destination, and SK Hynix has already named its two. The company says proceeds will fund the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, its long-delayed manufacturing hub south of Seoul, along with new advanced packaging capacity and equipment for next-generation production. That packaging step is the real bottleneck. High bandwidth memory chips aren't just fabricated, they're stacked and bonded in a process that's harder to scale than the wafer manufacturing itself, and it's the reason HBM has stayed in short supply even as everyone in the industry raced to add capacity.
SK Hynix isn't raising this money from a position of weakness. It's raising it from a position most of its rivals would kill for. TrendForce reported that SK Hynix is expected to supply roughly two-thirds of Nvidia's HBM4 allocation for the Vera Rubin platform, with some estimates putting the company's share closer to 70%. By comparison, Samsung and Micron are fighting over the rest, with Samsung reportedly landing a mid-20% allocation despite years of trying to close the qualification gap with Nvidia. On overall HBM market share, industry tracking cited by Counterpoint Research and TrendForce put SK Hynix at 62% in the second quarter of 2026, with Micron at 21% and Samsung trailing at 17%. Micron, notably, has already reportedly sold out its entire 2026 HBM supply, which tells you how tight this market still is even with three major suppliers racing to expand.
Samsung's stumble is the backdrop that makes SK Hynix's timing look shrewd rather than opportunistic. Samsung has spent much of the past two years trying to pass Nvidia's qualification tests for its HBM3E chips, and the delays let SK Hynix lock in the pole position it now holds heading into the HBM4 transition. A company that dominant doesn't strictly need a Nasdaq listing to fund expansion. It could lean on cash flow, Korean debt markets, or its existing Seoul listing. What a US listing buys instead is a different investor base entirely, one already fluent in pricing Nvidia, AMD and the rest of the AI supply chain, and one that can value SK Hynix against those comparables rather than against Korean industrials that have nothing to do with AI.
That's the bet embedded in this filing. SK Hynix is choosing to raise capital in dollars, from US investors, at the exact moment those investors are the ones best positioned to reward a company synonymous with the AI memory boom. If the skepticism building around AI capital expenditure turns out to be right and hyperscalers start pulling back orders, a Nasdaq listing won't insulate SK Hynix from that. But if the current supercycle holds even through 2027, as SK Hynix's own market outlook argues it will, then locking in a premium American valuation now, while HBM4 allocation numbers are still working in its favor, is the kind of timing decision that doesn't come around twice. Trading under SKHY starting July 10 will be the first real test of whether Wall Street agrees.
Also read: Bank of America warns the AI stock rally is due for a painful snapback • South Korea Turns an AI Chip Tax Windfall Into a New National Fund • Chip stocks tumbled this week as investors doubt the AI spending payoff
