SK Hynix Stock Surges 7% After Nvidia Says Demand Has “Gone Parabolic”

TLDR

• SK Hynix stock jumped nearly 7% on Tuesday, helping push South Korea’s KOSPI above 8,000 for the first time.
• Nvidia’s Q1 revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% year-on-year, sparked the rally in memory chip stocks.
• SK Hynix reported Q1 operating profit of 37.61 trillion won, up 405% from a year ago, with a 72% operating margin.
• TrendForce projects DRAM prices to rise 58–63% and NAND flash prices to jump 70–75% in Q2 2026.
• SK Hynix also launched “iHBM,” a new thermal management solution that cuts heat resistance by 30% for next-gen AI chips.

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SK Hynix stock jumped nearly 7% on Tuesday, helping lift South Korea’s KOSPI benchmark above the 8,000 mark for the first time in history.

The stock was trading up around 5.72% as of the latest session, with the broader index riding a wave of AI-driven semiconductor optimism.

The rally was sparked by Nvidia’s fiscal Q1 results, reported last week. Nvidia posted revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% year-on-year, with data centre revenue climbing 92% to $75.2 billion.

CEO Jensen Huang said demand had “gone parabolic.”

That language landed hard for memory investors. SK Hynix is one of the primary suppliers of high-bandwidth memory used in Nvidia’s AI accelerators, and the market moved quickly to price in the upside.

The company says client requests for HBM over the next three years already exceed its current production capacity.

Q1 Numbers Back Up the Bull Case

SK Hynix’s own financials have been just as striking. In Q1 2026, the company posted revenue of 52.58 trillion won and operating profit of 37.61 trillion won — a 405% jump from the same period a year earlier.

The operating margin came in at 72%, driven by strong sales of HBM chips, high-capacity server DRAM modules, and enterprise SSDs.

Analyst upgrades followed quickly. UBS lifted its target price to 1.7 million won, raising its 2026 and 2027 EPS forecasts by 22% and 29% respectively. Mirae Asset Securities pushed its target to 3.2 million won, while SK Securities floated a bull case of 3 million won.

TrendForce added fuel to the fire, projecting conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 58–63% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2026. NAND flash prices are expected to jump 70–75% in the same period.

These aren’t soft projections — they reflect a memory market where supply is genuinely tight across multiple product categories.

SK Hynix Launches iHBM Thermal Technology

Beyond the financials, SK Hynix also announced a new product on Tuesday: the iHBM solution, a thermal management innovation designed for next-generation HBM chips including HBM5.

The technology places integrated cooling elements directly in the Die-to-Die Physical Layer — the interface between HBM and GPU — where heat concentration is highest. The result is a 30% reduction in thermal resistance.

It’s built on SK Hynix’s existing MR-MUF packaging technology, which means customers can adopt it with minimal redesign work.

The company framed it as a direct response to the heat management challenges that come with stacking more dies at faster speeds to meet AI data processing demand.

Kangwook Lee, Senior VP and Head of PKG Development, said the iHBM solution “combines memory design capabilities with advanced packaging technology” to address requirements in high-density AI environments.

The KOSPI, now up roughly 75% year-to-date in 2026, has become one of the world’s most direct public-market plays on AI infrastructure. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together accounted for 44% of the index’s total value when it crossed 7,000 earlier this month.