SK Hynix is set to list its American Depositary Receipts (ADR) on the Nasdaq on July 10, with a valuation of $29 billion (approximately 44.2 trillion KRW).

Bloomberg reported on July 5 (local time) that this offering could become the largest initial stock sale by a foreign company in history.

The scale of this listing surpasses both Alibaba's 2014 U.S. listing ($25 billion) and Saudi Aramco's 2019 initial public offering (IPO) ($25.6 billion).

Bloomberg noted that the purpose of the listing goes beyond simple fundraising; it is aimed at securing competitiveness in the world's hottest market sector: memory chips for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

While SK Hynix is considered a leader in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, it has previously been listed only on the Korean stock exchange, making direct investment difficult for U.S. investors.

This was because investors had no viable means of investment other than purchasing unsponsored ADRs—over-the-counter shares not involving the company—which have extremely limited liquidity due to the inconvenience of trading during Korean market hours and the burden of currency exchange.

With the Nasdaq listing, SK Hynix will gain the ability to trade during regular market hours and qualify for inclusion in major indices such as the Nasdaq 100. This is expected to generate mechanical buying demand from exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track these indices.

The Invesco QQQ, which tracks the Nasdaq 100, alone manages assets totaling $482 billion (approximately 735 trillion KRW).

Daniel Morgan, a senior portfolio manager at the investment firm Synovus Trust, predicted that leveraging the U.S. stock market, the deepest capital market in the world, would be advantageous for resolving the undervaluation of SK Hynix.

However, there are also significant cautious views that the steep rally in memory semiconductor stocks may be overheated.

The trend of big tech companies like Alphabet and Microsoft shifting data center investment funding from internal cash to bond and stock market financing is raising concerns about how long the earnings boom for memory manufacturers will last.

Ed O'Gorman, CEO of the wealth management firm RiverWealth Advisors, stated, "Investors are taking the risk of stepping into a potential speculative bubble."