[Edaily Reporter YU JIN-HEE ] Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA and a dominant force in the artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market, actively congratulated his partner company, SK hynix(000660), on its expansion into the U.S. Nasdaq market. He lavished praise on the success of SK hynix’s American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), which were listed on the U.S. market, calling them “incredibly successful.”

CEO Huang’s remarks are expected to reaffirm the close partnership between the two companies in the field of High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), while also serving as a powerful catalyst for upward momentum among South Korea’s leading semiconductor stocks.

According to the semiconductor and investment banking (IB) industries on the 15th, CEO Huang made a surprise appearance at an event held in Akihabara, Tokyo, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the partnership between NVIDIA and Japanese game company SEGA.

At the event, CEO Huang was asked about SK hynix’s recent listing of its ADRs on the Nasdaq. With a beaming smile, he praised the move as “incredibly successful.” He went on to say, “I am extremely pleased with the results of this listing,” publicly demonstrating the strong trust underlying their partnership.

Capital markets view CEO Hwang’s remarks as carrying significance beyond a simple congratulatory message. SK hynix is the top-tier, core supplier that effectively exclusively provides high-performance HBM memory to NVIDIA’s proprietary lineup of AI semiconductors based on graphics processing units (GPUs). The astronomical amount of liquidity raised by SK hynix through this ADR listing will be immediately invested in upgrading its next-generation HBM production facilities. This will in turn lead to the stable expansion of the global hyper-scale AI computing ecosystem led by NVIDIA.

As CEO Hwang noted, SK hynix ADRs surged 27.29% at the close on the 14th (local time)—the third trading day after the listing—driven by strong buying pressure from local investors seeking to capitalize on the stock’s undervaluation. This rally was further bolstered by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s (Fed) announcement of a slowdown in the June Consumer Price Index (CPI), which significantly eased concerns over interest rate hikes.

This positive global momentum led to a broad rally in the domestic stock market. On the 15th, SK hynix closed at 2,082,000 won, surging 8.83% from the previous session. It reclaimed the “2 million won mark” for the first time in three SamIl trading days. At one point during the session, the stock surged as much as 13.49%, threatening the 2,171,000 won level.

SamsungElectronics(005930), which had been struggling, also maintained its rebound for the second consecutive day, closing at 279,000 won, up 6.27%. During the session, it rose as much as 8.17% to hit 284,500 won.

Although retail investors, who had been taking profits amid the recent semiconductor market correction, dumped large volumes of shares (a net sell of approximately 1.9325 trillion won in total), foreign and institutional investors drove upward pressure by snapping up shares in the KOSPI’s electrical and electronics sectors to the tune of 1.3402 trillion won and 621.7 billion won, respectively. Foreign investors made net purchases of 650 billion won worth of SK hynix and 510 billion won worth of SamsungElectronics on the day, placing the two companies side by side as the top two most-bought stocks on the KOSPI. Analysts note that the surprise second-quarter revenue figures (9.326 billion euros) announced that day by ASML, the Dutch semiconductor lithography equipment monopoly, also strongly stimulated foreign investors’ appetite for buying at lower prices.

Meanwhile, CEO Hwang plans to further intensify efforts to strengthen the Asian AI supply chain during this visit to Japan.

At a partnership event that day, he expressed his deepest gratitude to Sega, the Japanese gaming company that spearheaded the 3D graphics revolution. He also shared the behind-the-scenes story of how a $5 million (approximately 7.53 billion won) investment from Sega in the mid-1990s—when NVIDIA was facing bankruptcy in its early days—was a pivotal turning point that propelled the company’s growth.

CEO Huang went on to say, “On the 16th, we plan to announce a comprehensive, large-scale technological alliance with the Japanese government covering robotics and next-generation core AI fields,” adding, “Tomorrow will effectively mark the historic starting point for Japan’s leap forward in AI.” Following the achievements of his previous visits to South Korea, this is interpreted as part of a vision to establish a global supply chain that closely links Japan’s manufacturing network—under the Takaichi Sanae cabinet, which has recently been devoting all its efforts to fostering domestic manufacturing conglomerates and digital transformation—with NVIDIA’s chip ecosystem.