00:00One of the top names in the hottest corner of the global stock market
00:03may be a company that you've never heard of.
00:06South Korean memory chip maker, SK Hynix.
00:10It's one of the world's three dominant memory chip makers,
00:13right next to Samsung Electronics and Micron.
00:17Earlier in the year, SK Hynix hit $1 trillion in market value for the first time.
00:23But how did it go from a beleaguered company on the brink of collapse to a tech darling?
00:29SK Hynix's story began in 1983 as part of the Hyundai empire,
00:34where it was later known as Hynix.
00:36But the Asian financial crisis and the brutal downturn in the semiconductor market
00:42dealt painful blows to the company.
00:44What followed next was years of creditor bailouts, intense competition, and mounting losses.
00:52In stark contrast, its rival Samsung was thriving.
00:56The turning point for the company came in 2012 when SK Group acquired a controlling stake in it
01:03that gave it the capital, support, and stability it had lacked earlier.
01:09The company was later renamed SK Hynix.
01:12But its biggest breakthrough, however, may be its foray into the high-bandwidth memory,
01:17placing it in the center of the AI boom that's culminated in a massive U.S. stock market listing
01:25that could potentially unlock fresh capital for its aggressive expansion plans
01:31to secure its position and South Korea's standing in the AI race.
01:35With the
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