Alphabet posted Q2 revenue of $119.8 billion on Thursday, beat expectations, and then did something that sent shockwaves through the semiconductor supply chain: it raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $195 $205 billion, up from the previous $180 $190 billion range. That $15 billion bump landed hardest on SK Hynix, which makes the high-bandwidth memory chips stuffed into virtually every serious AI server on the planet.
SK Hynix stock jumped as much as 12% intraday in Seoul. Its US-listed ADR, SKHY, was up around 5.89% in recent trading. The Korean KOSPI index rode the wave to a 4.8% gain, a fresh year-to-date high. Meanwhile the S&P 500 was off 0.4%, the Dow down 0.4%, and the Nasdaq sliding 0.5%. Hard to miss the contrast.
Alphabet CFO Anat Ashkenazi tied the capex increase to "an acceleration in the delivery of capacity to meet growing demand." Alphabet's Cloud segment grew 82% year-over-year. That kind of infrastructure spending doesn't happen without a massive appetite for memory, and SK Hynix is one of the few companies that can actually supply it at scale.
Why SKHY Is Harder to Buy Than It Used to Be
There's a supply wrinkle that amplified Thursday's move. The Korea Securities Depository confirmed that SK Hynix has hit the 2.5% cap on the share of Korean-listed stock that can be converted into US-traded ADRs. That conversion channel is now closed. The $26.5 billion ADR issuance from July 10, one of the largest US share offerings on record, exhausted the limit. With SKHY supply effectively capped for US investors, buying pressure has nowhere to go but up on price. Normally a raise that size weighs on a stock. Not here.
Board Approves Massive Packaging Facility
On July 22, SK Hynix's board signed off on a ₩7.09 trillion investment in its Cheongju advanced packaging facility. The timing matters: the company reports Q2 earnings on July 29, and investors are already positioning. The facility approval gives them a concrete anchor, a real number showing where management is putting capital rather than just talking about AI demand.
SK Hynix's CEO has previously said the memory shortage is expected to get worse through 2027, with demand running ahead of supply well past 2030. That backdrop makes Alphabet's latest capex signal feel less like a one-quarter event and more like confirmation of a multi-year trend. The divergence from the broader US market on Thursday makes the sector-specific nature of this story pretty clear. This isn't a rising-tide day. It's one company, one supply chain, one very large AI infrastructure bet.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
