SK Hynix rides AI boom as Samsung plays catch-up

SEOUL -- The artificial intelligence boom has created a sharp divide on the South Korean stock market: memory chip maker SK Hynix has shot up more than 16% this year, while bigger rival Samsung Electronics has languished.

SK Hynix is the leading producer of high bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips, which are used in conjunction with Nvidia's graphics processors to enable powerful AI computing. Explosive demand for AI chips and servers has sent SK Hynix's share price on the South Korean stock market up 16.5% since the start of the year.