Micron Technology and SK Hynix have each seen their market capitalization exceed the trillion-dollar mark.
On Monday, Micron Technology's stock surged 19%, propelling its market value above $1 trillion (approximately RMB 6.78 trillion) for the first time. Following this, shares of South Korean memory chip leader SK Hynix rose as much as 11% on Tuesday, also pushing its market cap past the $1 trillion threshold. SK Hynix has become the third company in Asia, after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics, to achieve this valuation milestone.
The generative AI boom is transforming memory chip manufacturers, once considered "behind-the-scenes" players, into the hottest new stars in the global capital markets.
**Micron's Stock Soars 19%, First to Cross $1 Trillion** According to a recent report, UBS significantly raised its price target for Micron from $535 (approximately RMB 3,628) to $1,625 (approximately RMB 11,000), doubling its previous estimate. The firm believes that as the structural changes AI brings to the entire memory system become clearer, Micron's valuation still has room for further growth.
The report suggests that the wave of AI infrastructure development is driving explosive demand for memory chips such as HBM, DRAM, and NAND. Compared to the traditional cloud computing era, generative AI models require higher data throughput, larger memory capacity, and more complex memory architectures, rapidly elevating the importance of memory chips. The rapid growth of AI servers, inference clusters, and agent workloads is also triggering a global memory shortage. Memory chip manufacturers, including Micron and SK Hynix, are becoming the biggest beneficiaries of this supply-demand imbalance.
Year-to-date, Micron's stock has more than doubled. Just a few weeks ago, its market cap had just broken through $700 billion. Meanwhile, Intel, which missed the early AI boom, is regaining market favor. Over the past year, Intel's stock has surged over sixfold, nearing its historical highs. With the U.S. government increasing support for domestic semiconductor production, Intel is attempting to return to the industry's core through advanced packaging, wafer manufacturing, and AI server businesses.
**SK Hynix and Samsung Surpass $1 Trillion, AI Fuels South Korean Market** On Tuesday, SK Hynix's stock rose up to 11%, driving the company's market value above $1 trillion for the first time. Its share price has increased nearly 250% since the beginning of the year. As a key supplier to AI chip giant NVIDIA, SK Hynix has become a crucial player in the global AI supply chain.
A few weeks prior, Samsung Electronics also saw its market cap surpass $1 trillion. Currently, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for over 40% of the weighting in South Korea's KOSPI index. According to London Stock Exchange Group data, the KOSPI has nearly doubled since the start of the year. However, concerns are emerging about the concentration risk of AI-related stocks in the South Korean market. Analysts point out that as capital continues to flow into a handful of AI-concept stocks, the market's dependence on the AI industry chain is rapidly increasing. If global data center investment slows, supply chains experience volatility, or chip demand growth decelerates, the market could face greater risk of fluctuation.
Some institutions, however, believe this rally is far from over. Peter Kim, a global investment strategist at KB Financial Group, stated that the fundamentals for SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics remain very solid, and the pace of earnings expectation upgrades is even exceeding the stock price gains, meaning their valuations have actually "become cheaper." He noted that Micron's current price-to-earnings ratio is about 12x, while SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics are at 6-7x, suggesting the long-term growth potential from AI is not yet fully reflected in their stock prices.
**AI-Driven Memory Supply Shortage Likely to Persist** The storage demand driven by AI is not a short-term trend but an industrial cycle that could last for years. Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, recently described the current AI boom as "the third inning of a nine-inning game." He believes the AI revolution is just beginning.
Ives pointed out that demand for HBM, DRAM, and NAND flash memory has reached unprecedented levels. As cloud giants like Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon continue to ramp up AI infrastructure investments, the capital expenditures of global large tech companies could reach $725 billion (approximately RMB 4.92 trillion) in the future. In this context, the supply-demand imbalance for HBM is unlikely to ease in the short term. The real risk that could potentially break this semiconductor super-cycle remains overcapacity.
However, several analysts believe that building new capacity in the memory industry often takes years, so the supply-demand imbalance is likely to persist in the near term.
Simultaneously, the AI boom is spreading from U.S. tech stocks to Asian and emerging markets. Philip Wool, Chief Portfolio Manager at Rayliant Global Advisors, noted that while the market previously focused on U.S. AI leaders like NVIDIA, capital is now flowing comprehensively to core AI infrastructure companies such as SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. He also cautioned that as market expectations for AI capital expenditures grow increasingly high, these companies will need to consistently deliver growth that exceeds expectations to support their current valuation levels.
**Conclusion: Memory Chip Makers Take Flight as AI Capital Frenzy Continues** The breakthrough of global memory chip giants past the trillion-dollar market cap is a direct reflection of the competition in AI industry hardware infrastructure. The current industry supply-demand imbalance, along with the technological and supply chain barriers of leading companies, supports the continuation of this super-cycle. However, risks such as high market concentration, intensified valuation games, and fluctuations in global capital sentiment also introduce variables for the industry's future development. The global semiconductor industry landscape will continue to be reshaped by the AI wave.