SK Hynix plans record $29 billion US listing as AI memory demand explodes

SK Hynix has filed to raise up to 45.45 trillion won, roughly $29 billion, through a listing of American depositary receipts on Nasdaq, the South Korean memory maker disclosed in a regulatory filing on Wednesday. The company has tentatively set July 10 for the debut and intends to issue 17.79 million new shares to back the receipts.

At the top of the indicated range, the offering would surpass the $21.8 billion Alibaba raised in its 2014 New York debut, making it the largest ADR sale on record. SK Hynix said the entire raise will fund chip capacity, naming a fabrication plant in Yongin, an advanced packaging fab in Cheongju, and equipment purchases including extreme ultraviolet scanners.

AI memory demand drives record capital raises

The filing arrives days after SK Hynix passed Samsung in market value to become South Korea's most valuable listed company on a common stock basis, the first change at the top of the Korea Exchange since Samsung claimed it in November 2000. The company now controls roughly 60 to 70 percent of the HBM4 volume allocated to Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform, according to industry estimates.

• ByteDance is in preliminary talks with banks for an offshore loan of roughly $20 billion, which would be the largest the TikTok owner has ever raised, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The facility would have a three year tenor with an option to extend.
• Reliance Jio has lined up a $4 billion IPO in India, the country's largest ever, as the telco pushes AI goals.
• Anthropic signed a supply agreement with Micron, following an investment, with Micron also agreeing to use Claude internally. Claude Tag already generates 65 percent of Anthropic's product team code.

Industry faces cyclical risk amid AI spending spree

The business of memory is famously cyclical, and the current upswing is being priced as though it will not turn. HBM capacity for 2026 is sold out and shortages are forecast into 2027, but SK Hynix is raising money to expand for demand stretching well beyond that. The company's shares have risen several hundred percent over the past two years, and it overtook Samsung on annual profit for the first time in January.

Underwriting the deal are BofA Securities, Citigroup Global Markets, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan Securities. Pricing, share count, and the listing date can still move pending SEC review expected in the coming weeks. If the deal prices at the top of its range on July 10, SK Hynix will have written the largest ADR offering in history.