A stock up more than 500% in twelve months is not usually where analysts go hunting for value. Mirae Asset Securities went anyway. The Korean brokerage raised its target price on SK Hynix Inc. (SKHY) to 3.1 million won from 2.8 million won on Sept. 7 and kept its Buy rating.
That implies 88.2% upside, which for the ADR translates to a target price of $362.
Mirae also raised its price target for Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., reinforcing its bullish view across memory producers.
The read-through is also lifting Micron Technology Inc. (MU), which gained about 4% on Thursday.
AI Chips Are Becoming More Memory-Hungry
The investment case rests on a simple shift: AI processors are becoming more powerful, but they also need more memory to operate efficiently.
Advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) sits next to the processor and allows information to move much faster than with conventional memory.
Without enough capacity and bandwidth, expensive AI chips cannot deliver their full performance.
"Demand for greater HBM capacity and bandwidth remains strong," Mirae Asset analyst Young-gun Kim said.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)'s upcoming MI455X accelerator includes 432 gigabytes of HBM4, according to the bank. That is 50% more memory than the previous-generation MI355X.
Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)'s Rubin platform features 288 gigabytes of HBM4.
OpenAI's Jalapeno accelerator, shown at Hot Chips 2026, was the only custom chip there using HBM4, at 216 gibibytes and 15.4 terabytes per second of bandwidth.
Custom chips from Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. now cluster in the 216- to 288-gigabyte range.
Mirae indicates that convergence should broaden SK Hynix's customer list beyond its existing anchor accounts.
"Rising HBM content coupled with expanding HBM adoption among custom ASICs should support customer diversification at SK Hynix," Kim said.
An ASIC is a custom chip created for a specific task. For memory producers, its growing adoption means demand is no longer tied exclusively to traditional graphics processors.
Why Micron Stock Is Also Rising
SK Hynix remains the global HBM leader, but the same supply dynamics support Micron.
Only SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung Electronics manufacture HBM at scale. As they dedicate more advanced production capacity to AI memory, supply for conventional DRAM can tighten.
That can lift prices across the broader memory market.
Mirae expects SK Hynix's average DRAM selling prices to rise 15.8% sequentially in the third quarter and another 7.2% in the fourth quarter.
Prices are forecast to increase 23.9% in calendar 2027.
"The stock is undervalued in absolute terms, trading at just 3.1x 2027F P/E and 1.6x 2027F P/B," Kim said.
The bank raised its price target even as it reduced its operating-profit forecasts because of the stronger Korean won. That distinction is important: the bullish call depends on the durability of the memory cycle, not an upward revision to near-term earnings.
Kim raised DRAM average selling price assumptions — the price per unit of memory sold — by 4.4 percentage points for 2026.
For Micron investors, the message is equally powerful. If memory content keeps rising across GPUs and custom AI processors, the company can benefit from both higher HBM volumes and tighter conventional DRAM supply.
