Nvidia's AI chips have become the ultimate treasure; whoever receives Nvidia's orders possesses an invincible body. SK Hynix has long been overshadowed by Samsung, picking up the resources left by Samsung to rank second. According to Bloomberg, this situation has recently reversed, and SK Hynix has become Nvidia's main partner, supplying high-bandwidth memory HBM compatible with Nvidia GPUs, severely impacting Samsung.
The life ups and downs of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae Won are as dramatic as a Korean drama. His ex-wife is the daughter of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo, Roh Soo-young, a typical marriage between business and politics. Later, Chey Tae Won was divorced after his ex-wife discovered his extramarital affair and was reportedly demanded to pay the highest divorce settlement in South Korean history, with Roh Soo-young asking for 1.042 billion dollars. Chey Tae Won was also prosecuted by South Korean courts for embezzling hundreds of billions of Korean won in company funds and served prison time, similar to Samsung heir Jay Y. Lee.
Chey Tae Won, whose English name is Tony, acquired SK Hynix in 2012. Originally established as Hyundai Electronics Co. in 1983, SK Hynix faced significant losses due to a sharp decline in DRAM prices. Initially, Chey Tae Won was not optimistic about the acquisition of SK Hynix, but it has now proven his foresight.
The key decision that allowed SK Hynix to revive was to continue developing high-bandwidth memory HBM, while their competitor Samsung's executives did not regard this technology as important and even disbanded their HBM team, effectively handing the gold mine to SK Hynix. When OpenAI launched ChatGPT at the end of 2022, causing a rush for AI chips, SK Hynix was ready to capitalize on the opportunity.
SK Hynix was chosen by Nvidia as a major supplier. Its current market value has surged to 117 trillion Korean won (about 84 billion dollars), growing by more than 110% since the beginning of 2023.
Samsung's scale is still three times that of SK Hynix, but they are lagging behind in developing HBM technology and still need Nvidia's approval. Meanwhile, SK Hynix is leveraging its advantages.
To maintain its advantage, SK Hynix has offered more bonuses and benefits than Samsung to encourage existing employees and attract more talent from large companies. SK Hynix engineers proudly say that HBM represents Hynix's best storage capability.
This article highlights Nvidia's support! South Korea's second-largest conglomerate, SK Hynix, has made a comeback and surpassed Samsung, with a market value soaring to 84 billion dollars. It first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.
