SK Hynix is preparing to list in the United States in a deal that could raise as much as $14bn as soon as August, according to people familiar with the plan. The Korean memory maker has made a confidential filing for American depositary receipts, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to review it within weeks.
The company told investors this week that the proposal drew “tremendously positive” feedback, sources said. A US listing would broaden its investor base well beyond Seoul and plug it directly into the American appetite for AI stocks.
That appetite has already transformed SK Hynix. Its shares have risen around 250 per cent in 2026, and its market value topped $1tn last week, making it Asia’s third trillion-dollar company after TSMC and Samsung.
Why a US listing now
SK Hynix is the dominant supplier of high-bandwidth memory, the stacked DRAM that AI accelerators depend on. It recently signed a multi-year deal with Nvidia to co-develop the memory for its next chips, and holds the majority of early HBM4 supply.
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Demand has been strong enough to bend the wider market. The three big memory makers have shifted most of their capacity to AI server memory, driving up the price of the DRAM in phones and PCs. A US listing would raise fresh capital to fund the capacity expansion that boom demands.
The plan is not finalised. The size, the timing, and the listing itself remain subject to change, and because the filing is confidential, the company has not confirmed details publicly. Estimates of the raise run from about $10bn to $14bn, with the SEC review only expected in the coming weeks.
The direction, though, is clear. SK Hynix would join a rush of companies seeking US listings to tap AI demand, a queue that runs from SpaceX’s record IPO to a wave of chip and AI names. The open question is whether the memory cycle stays hot long enough to reward investors buying after a 250-per-cent run.
