"Choi Taewon is Jensen Hwang from Korea...SK Hynix is on the AI trend."

Photo Source: Yonhap News

Regarding SK Hynix, which is considered one of the leading beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom in Korea, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won succeeded after acquiring Hynix, which had been in a financial crisis.

Bloomberg introduced Choi as "South Korea's Jensen," named after Jensen Hwang, CEO of Nvidia, a global AI chip leader, in a newsletter on the 28th.

The AI boom has multiplied Nvidia's stock price by several times and made CEO Hwang a "rock star" in the world, which is not well known, but Choi's rise has been equally dramatic.

SK Hynix, which has long been overshadowed by Samsung Electronics, has become a key partner in supplying high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to Nvidia, and this period was also a turning point for Chairman Choi, Bloomberg explained.

Bloomberg said that Choi's renewed confidence reflects SK Hynix's history of upheaval, and pointed out that Choi made a very risky bet about acquiring Hynix, which was struggling with debt in 2012.

Hynix, which was born when Hyundai Electronics acquired LG Semiconductor in 1999 due to the so-called big deal policy, tried to sell it several times after being separated from Hyundai Group in August 2001 due to the liquidity crisis caused by the collapse of DRAM prices, but it was canceled several times.

SK has spent billions of dollars on research and development since the acquisition of Hynix, Bloomberg said, and the most important decision was to continue developing HBM, especially when Samsung Electronics executives did not see HBM as a priority and effectively disbanded the team.

When the AI boom occurred, SK Hynix was ready to jump on the trend, and its stock price has risen more than 100% since early last year, becoming the second-largest market capitalization in Korea.

Bloomberg Intelligence (BI), a research institute affiliated with Bloomberg, recently predicted that SK Hynix will be able to maintain its top position in the HBM sector over the next 12 months, saying that SK Hynix's production volume has been sold out until next year.