Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTBram Berkowitz, The Motley FoolThu, July 16, 2026 at 10:10 PM GMT+2 5 min readInvestors should always keep an open mind when looking for new investment ideas, whether that means exploring uncommon sectors or even countries they don't live in.SK Hynix (KOSE: A000660) (NASDAQ: SKHY) is proof of that. The South Korean memory chip company has proven to be a key player in the artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain and has generated phenomenal gains for South Korean shareholders.Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »In fact, SK Hynix now accounts for over 25% of the Korea Composite Stock Price Index, South Korea's benchmark. If you'd invested $5,000 in SK Hynix five years ago (something U.S. investors would have had great difficulty doing until recently), here's how much you'd have today.Image source: Getty Images.SK Hynix is not a new company, having been founded in 1983 as Hyundai Electronics. The company is one of the largest manufacturers of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and NAND flash memory, which have long powered consumer electronics.This technology has become a key part of AI because DRAM and NAND chips play critical roles in feeding data to the general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) made by companies like Nvidia to train large language models (LLMs). As GPU clusters and data centers have scaled, so too has the need for DRAM and NAND.NAND serves as permanent storage for data that GPUs can access at any time, such as operating systems and data sets. It's not as fast as DRAM, but it provides cheaper access to storage. DRAM is temporary storage, meaning the data is lost when power is off, but it's much faster and key to enabling GPUs to pull in as much data per second as they do.Memory companies have historically been viewed as cyclical because whenever there is a surge in demand for DRAM and NAND, it takes time for memory companies to catch up, making it difficult to predict when the supply-and-demand balance will even out. Oftentimes, companies will ramp up supply too much, leading prices to eventually fall. However, Wall Street analysts believe demand for DRAM and NAND will be constrained for the next few years, leading memory prices to climb through 2027 and even potentially into 2028.In the first quarter of 2026, SK Hynix held the second-largest market share in the global NAND and DRAM markets, with 18% and 29%, respectively. The company also reported record first-quarter earnings results. Revenue tripled year over year, while operating profit rose more than 400%.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info