SK Hynix, the South Korean semiconductor giant, saw its stock surge to a record high on Tuesday, driven by a dual catalyst of relentless AI infrastructure demand and positive sentiment spillover from SanDisk's upcoming inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 index.
The company's Seoul-listed shares (000660.KS) climbed as much as 9% intraday to reach an all-time high of 1,128,000 won. This rally followed a strong session for technology stocks on Wall Street, fueled by ongoing enthusiasm for AI infrastructure spending. Analysts point to SK Hynix's dominant position in the supply of High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) – a critical component for AI processors like those made by Nvidia – as the core driver. With demand for HBM outstripping supply, the company enjoys significant pricing power, making it a prime beneficiary of the AI buildout.
The second catalyst was the announcement that SanDisk will join the Nasdaq-100 before the market opens on April 20, replacing Atlassian. This news sent SanDisk's stock up 11.83% and boosted confidence across the broader memory and storage sector. Index inclusions typically trigger forced buying from passive funds tracking the benchmark, creating positive sentiment that spilled over to related companies like SK Hynix. Furthermore, the two companies are technology partners, jointly developing High Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a new memory layer designed for AI systems.
The record run is supported by solid fundamentals. Following a strong profit forecast from rival Samsung Electronics, analysts at Korea Investment & Securities raised their full-year operating profit estimate for SK Hynix by 28%, citing stronger-than-expected pricing for DRAM and NAND memory. The market is clearly rewarding companies seen as bottlenecks in the AI infrastructure chain, where memory remains a critically tight link. SK Hynix has responded to the demand by accelerating investment, bringing forward the opening of a new factory and starting operations at another plant earlier this year.
