South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix is coming to Wall Street. According to TechCrunch AI, the company said Monday it plans to sell nearly 17.8 million shares in a U.S. IPO, a move that could raise around $28 billion based on its closing price in Seoul last Friday. SK Hynix is the direct rival to Samsung and U.S.-based Micron, and it’s one of the biggest names powering the memory chips inside modern AI systems.
Here’s how the deal is structured. SK Hynix is offering American depositary receipts, or ADRs, which let U.S. investors buy a foreign stock without trading on an overseas exchange. Each ADR represents a tenth of a common share. TechCrunch AI reports the securities are expected to price on Thursday and start trading on Friday.
Why a memory maker is suddenly this hot
The short version: AI runs on memory, and there isn’t enough of it.
SK Hynix’s numbers tell the story. First-quarter revenues jumped nearly 200% over the same quarter last year, and its stock is up about 260% so far in 2026. That’s not a fluke. Systems that run AI are extremely memory intensive, and demand has blown past what suppliers can make.
As hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle race to build out AI data centers, they’re buying up three types of chips as fast as they can:
- HBM (high-bandwidth memory) – the premium chips that feed data to AI accelerators
- DRAM – the working memory AI models lean on
- NAND – the storage that holds and moves data inside these systems
Demand has outpaced supply so badly that people are calling it “RAMageddon.” The ripple effects are already hitting consumers. Apple executives said the shortage is forcing the company to raise prices on Macs and iPads, according to TechCrunch AI.
Why this matters for investors and the industry
Wall Street is hunting for the next Nvidia, and memory chipmakers are the closest thing on the board. Look at Micron, the nearest U.S. comparison: its stock has climbed nearly 700% over the past year to a valuation north of $1 trillion, driven by record AI-fueled memory demand.
That’s the frame investors will put SK Hynix into. A profitable, established player with real revenue growth, plugged directly into the AI buildout, now available to U.S. buyers without the friction of trading in Seoul. The indication so far is that these shares will sell well.
What stands out to me is the bet underneath all of it. South Korean tech companies, led by SK Hynix and Samsung, have vowed to spend over $550 billion building new manufacturing capacity to keep up with demand. That’s a staggering commitment, and it’s genuinely risky.
The catch nobody should ignore
Memory is famously cyclical. Fabs take years to build. By the time all that new capacity comes online, AI’s memory needs may look different, and the industry could swing from shortage to glut. When memory supply overshoots demand, prices don’t dip gently. They crash.
So the same forces making SK Hynix look like a can’t-miss AI play right now are the forces that could turn on it later. Ride the shortage up, risk the oversupply down. Every investor eyeing these ADRs is really making a call on how long RAMageddon lasts.
What to watch next
Keep an eye on Friday’s debut and the pricing that lands Thursday. Strong demand would confirm that appetite for AI-adjacent chip stocks is still running hot, and it could pull more foreign chipmakers toward U.S. listings. Weak demand would be the first real crack in the memory trade.
For now, the shortage is real, the revenue is real, and Wall Street wants in. You can find the full details in the original report at TechCrunch AI.