Industry estimates put Solidigm’s sought capital raise at around $10 billion to $15 billion
SEOUL — SK Hynix said Friday it had scrapped plans for a major U.S. public offering of Solidigm, which it established to operate the solid-state-drive and NAND business it acquired from Intel in a 2020 deal. The company cited market conditions and broader share-price trends, saying the decision did not reflect any change in Solidigm’s growth prospects or investment needs.
The proposed IPO would have raised funds for a new production facility in the U.S. to meet rising demand. According to industry estimates, Solidigm aimed to raise around $10 billion to $15 billion in new capital, which would have valued the firm at up to $150 billion and potentially marked one of the biggest technology-company IPOs to date.
SK Hynix had also faced opposition from regulators and shareholders, who believed a Solidigm public offering could dilute shareholder value and effectively duplicate SK Hynix’s listing.
The Wall Street Journal described the move as highlighting deeper investor caution toward artificial-intelligence valuations despite robust demand for AI-related hardware. SK Hynix is a key partner to Nvidia.
Solidigm is a major producer of NAND flash-memory chips used to store data, and its products have seen sharply rising demand from data centers over the past year. In recent months, memory-chip prices surged largely because big technology companies spent aggressively on AI infrastructure. The world’s biggest memory makers—Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology—have been generating record profits, while industry executives projected that supply shortages would persist into 2028.
The semiconductor industry’s last widely watched IPO came in 2023 with Arm Holdings, which valued the chip designer at around $54.5 billion.
Solidigm was the latest high-profile firm to pull back from public-listing plans. Australian data-center operator Firmus Grid canceled its IPO earlier in October, while Blackstone-backed AirTrunk delayed a planned Singapore listing until next year, citing market conditions.
Anthropic was preparing a major public listing for next month, later than investors had expected, as concerns grew about the rapid pace and enormous costs of AI advances.
SK Hynix is listed on South Korea’s Kospi stock index. Its shares, identified as 000660, were up 4.42% Friday. In July, the chipmaker made its debut on Nasdaq and raised $26.5 billion in the biggest-ever U.S. listing by a foreign company, topping the $25 billion Alibaba raised in 2014.
The Wall Street Journal identified Jiyoung Sohn as a technology and business reporter in its Seoul bureau who writes about semiconductors, artificial intelligence, smartphones and developments affecting the global technology supply chain. Sohn is a graduate of Yonsei University and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
MSI previously reported on Firmus Grid withdraws Australian IPO application and Oura delays IPO as volatility, AI safety fears stall fall listings. Solidigm’s halt of its IPO plan added a major semiconductor listing to the run of technology offerings delayed or abandoned as investors became more cautious about public listings.