How SK Hynix’s bet on a niche memory chip made it more valuable than Samsung

SEOUL: SK Hynix’s overtaking of Samsung Electronics to become South Korea’s most valuable firm was the culmination of 14 years of bets that brought it skepticism and scorn but ultimately put it at the centre of the global AI gold rush.

In 2012, conglomerate SK Group acquired Hynix Semiconductor in a deal that was considered financially irresponsible. Samsung, in contrast, was valued at more than 10 times SK Hynix and was the global leader in Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM), a memory type that powers laptops and smartphones.