Two more chip companies join the stock market “billionaires” club. AI fever continues to drive investment.
There is no war that matters, The rally stock market around semiconductors it is only gaining strength day after day, week after week.
Two of the main players in the world of memory chips have in fact joined forces in the very exclusive in recent days “billionaires” clubi.e. those companies whose stock market capitalization value has exceeded one billion (that would be 1000 billion).
The new members of the 1 trillion club
Let’s talk about South Korea SK Hynix and American Micron Technologywhich exceeded the capitalization of 1 trillion dollars for the first time, driven by the explosive demand for HBM memory chip for artificial intelligence.
In fact, both actors are among the world’s largest producers of semiconductorsspecialized in the development and manufacturing of memory chip for computers, servers, smartphones and artificial intelligence systems.
More, because together with Samsungthese two companies control almost the entire global market for ultra-high performance memoriesor High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), thus playing a crucial role in the technological revolution linked to AI.
The memories HBM they are very high-speed three-dimensional memory chips, which are integrated directly into the chips used to train AI models (such as Nvidia’s GPUs).
In other words, without HBM memories provided largely by South Korea’s SK Hynix or America’s Micron Technology, modern AI models could not process data at the required speed.
Demand for chips is skyrocketing
The stock market boom linked to the stocks of semiconductor companies is justified (in part) by the enormous demand for HBM, just think that according to analysts JP Morgan And Morningstar the current memory chip shortage will last until 2027 or even 2028.
Demand is really skyrocketing, Micron Technology has already stated that HBM’s entire chip production capacity through 2026 has already been sold out due to advance orders from customers.
It doesn’t end here, because the prices of chips (HBM, NAND and DRAM) are also increasing dramatically. In the first quarter of 2026 the price increases have reached between 90% and 100% of the original pricewhile the second quarter also seems to record an overall jump of 50%.
To produce the highly profitable HBM chips intended for AI, manufacturers (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) are taking production lines away from traditional memories (DRAM for PCs and smartphones and NAND Flash for SSDs).
The natural consequence is one chain shortage also in everyday consumer electronics productswith device manufacturers (such as Apple, Dell, Xiaomi or Lenovo) finding themselves at a crossroads: absorb the price increases by reducing their profits or increase the sales prices of computers and smartphones for consumers.
The market is increasingly concentrated
It’s not just chip manufacturing that is increasingly concentrated. The rally stock market trend in recent months sees semiconductor companies as the main driver.
Suffice it to say that from the beginning of 2026 Shares of SK Hynix and Micron recorded an astronomical +215% and +245% respectively. AI fever therefore continues to rewrite semiconductor sector valuations.
As a result, financial markets are becoming increasingly concentrated, in a frightening way. In the index KOSPI of South Korea, for example, the capitalizations of Samsung and SK Hynix together are worth 50% of the total value.
Things are better in the United States, where the actors who create a sort of “oligopoly” of investments on the stock market are greater, but the result is not, i.e. the highest concentration rate since the 1930s.
Of the top ten companies by capitalization in the S&P 500, 9 (including Micron) directly deal with AI and semiconductors. Together, they represent the 41% of the total capitalization.
Semiconductors and artificial intelligence, nothing else seems to matter at the moment for the financial markets.
