Zero One Daily Intelligence Brief — July 6, 2026

SK Hynix brings US$28bn to Nasdaq as NVIDIA's next AI rack slips to 2028

Top Market Signals

SK Hynix takes a US$28bn listing to Nasdaq

SK Hynix (000660 KS) has launched a US ADR offering that Reuters reports could raise about US$28bn (KRW 43tn), potentially the largest US listing ever by a foreign company, giving US investors direct access to NVIDIA's lead supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM, the stacked memory that feeds AI processors).

The company has indicated it would issue up to 2.5% of its shares. At SK Hynix's roughly US$1.1tn market capitalization that works out to about US$26.5bn, with the final size still to be set, according to Bloomberg. Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are leading the sale, and SK Hynix is considering paying about 0.5% of proceeds in base fees, which would exceed US$130m. Early reports point to up to US$7bn of interest from major investors.

The Seoul-listed shares fell more than 5% on Monday ahead of the debut, extending a volatile stretch: the stock dropped as much as 15% last Thursday and rose up to 10% on Friday. Even 20% below last month's peak, SK Hynix is up 770% over 12 months. The Bank of Korea separately warned that single-stock leveraged ETFs tied to SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics could deepen market concentration and amplify volatility, noting the two companies account for more than half of Korean market capitalization and trading volume.

Our 29 Jun 2026 Blade flagged Samsung and SK Hynix preparing a combined US$1.3tn, decade-long investment across chips, AI data centers and advanced packaging. This listing is the first large equity raise against that buildout, and its reception will show how much fresh US capital is available to fund it.

Linked stocks: 000660 KS, 005930 KS, NVDA US, MU US

Sources: Taipeitimes, Google News

NVIDIA's next AI rack slips a year

NVIDIA's (NVDA US) Kyber NVL144 rack architecture, planned for 2027 alongside the Vera Rubin Ultra platform, has been delayed about 12 months to 2028 because of a manufacturing bottleneck in a key circuit board, research firm SemiAnalysis reported.

Kyber NVL144 integrates 144 of NVIDIA's most powerful chips into a single server rack so they can compute together, the configuration AI companies need to train and run the largest models. SemiAnalysis traced the delay to the PCB midplane, a specialized multilayer printed circuit board that connects the electronic modules inside the rack. NVIDIA did not respond to CNBC's request for comment.

The report hit the very stocks that have led this year's rally. Bloomberg reported Asian PCB names sliding on the news, and in Taipei the TAIEX swung more than 900 points intraday before closing down 0.48% at 46,556, with passive-component and ABF substrate names falling hard while TSMC held its gain.

Capital keeps flowing into the bottleneck. NVIDIA supplier Unimicron (3037 TT) is seeking up to US$1.4bn from a sale of global depositary shares, per Bloomberg, adding PCB capacity funding on top of the substrate and equipment expansions already under way across Taiwan's board makers.

Linked stocks: NVDA US, 3037 TT, 4958 TT

Sources: 輝達新一代AI機櫃傳遇生產瓶頸　擬延至2028年上市, Google News

Samsung previews an 18-fold profit jump

Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) reports 2Q26 preliminary results on Tuesday, and LSEG SmartEstimate consensus compiled by Reuters points to about KRW 86tn (about US$56bn) in operating profit, roughly 18 times the KRW 4.7tn a year earlier and a third straight record quarter.

TechNews notes that if the market's KRW 84.6tn (US$55.1bn) expectation is met, Samsung would top NVIDIA's most recent quarterly operating profit of US$53.5bn and become the most profitable company in the world for the quarter. Samsung DS division president Kim Yong-kwan told an internal town hall on 3 Jul 2026 that 2026 profit will exceed everything the company has earned in roughly 40 years of semiconductors combined, with analysts penciling in about KRW 300tn (about US$200bn) of operating profit for the full year.

Pricing is doing the work. Samsung is negotiating 3Q26 standard DRAM contract prices at up to 20% above 2Q, after raising them about 90% in 1Q26 versus the 4Q25 base and another 50-60% in 2Q26. Contract prices for 12GB LPDDR5X, the low-power memory now going into AI servers, have roughly tripled since 1Q25 to about US$145 per unit.

The main swing factor for Tuesday is bonuses. Samsung agreed in May to pay 10.5% of semiconductor operating profit as special employee bonuses, and analysts warn that if a larger-than-expected provision lands in 2Q, reported profit could miss consensus. JPMorgan also flags concentration risk in the demand base: AI-related spending is now about 52% of cloud providers' capex and could exceed 70% in 2026.

Linked stocks: 005930 KS, 000660 KS, MU US

Sources: AI需求推升記憶體價格 三星Q2獲利估暴增18倍, 超驚人！三星迎史上最賺一年，2026 年獲利將「超越過去 40 年總和」

Samsung's foundry wins Meta as TSMC sells out

Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) will manufacture Meta's (META US) third- through fifth-generation custom AI chips on its 2nm process in a contract reported at up to KRW 10tn (about US$6.5bn), ending TSMC's (2330 TT) run as the exclusive foundry for Meta's in-house accelerators, Seoul Economic Daily reported via TechNews.

The reported reason for the shift is capacity: TSMC's advanced nodes are fully booked by first- and second-tier customers, while Samsung offered one-stop co-development from the earliest design stage, with its custom-chip design unit working directly on Meta's future modules. The first batch is expected to exceed 100,000 chips. Meta is targeting 5GW of AI compute on a new chip generation every six months, and the report says the joint development model won the deal because it protects supply stability and speeds product launches.

Anthropic is reportedly heading the same way. DigiTimes reports the AI company has begun working with Samsung's foundry, aiming at inference cost-efficiency rather than peak performance, while TechNews reports it is evaluating Samsung's 2nm for its own custom chips; Anthropic declined to confirm, saying only that it diversifies compute sources. The company is planning a US$50bn, 1GW data center with about half the budget going to semiconductors including custom chips, DRAM and NAND.

Our 30 Jun 2026 Blade flagged TSMC handing overflow packaging and test work to Taiwan's OSAT houses because its own lines cannot keep up. Today's report is the same overflow pattern one level up: when the leading foundry is full at the leading edge, the orders go to Samsung, and Samsung's foundry backlog could reach KRW 50tn if the BYD and Anthropic deals close, per TechNews, potentially returning the division to profit by 4Q26.

Linked stocks: 005930 KS, 2330 TT, META US

Sources: 台積電產能被訂光，韓媒指 Meta 計劃新一代 AI 晶片轉三星 2 奈米生產, Anthropic自研晶片傳找三星　估計不追最強、而搶推論成本效益

Foxconn's AI servers drive a record quarter

Hon Hai (2317 TT) reported 2Q26 revenue of NT$2.51tn (US$78.4bn), up 39.8% YoY and 18.0% QoQ, its strongest second quarter ever and ahead of the NT$2.37tn analysts expected, on sustained AI server demand.

June revenue was NT$821.8bn, up 52.1% YoY and the highest June in company history, though 4.4% below May. First-half revenue reached NT$4.64tn, up 35.0% YoY, also a record, led by the cloud and networking division that assembles AI servers around NVIDIA accelerators. CNA reports Hon Hai holds roughly 40% of the global AI server market.

The company guided 3Q26 revenue up both QoQ and YoY on continued AI rack shipments plus seasonal demand for consumer electronics. Management has said the industry-wide memory shortage should not significantly affect demand for the premium handsets and computers it builds for major customers. The print lands against hyperscaler AI spending plans of about US$725bn this year across Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, per Bloomberg.

Linked stocks: 2317 TT, NVDA US, AAPL US

Sources: Focustaiwan, Taipeitimes

UMC hits a 15-quarter high and raises prices

UMC (2303 TT) posted 2Q26 revenue of NT$68.73bn, up 12.6% QoQ and 17.0% YoY, its highest quarterly revenue in 15 quarters, and has notified customers of price increases taking effect from July.

The July hikes are selective, applying to new processes and new orders, and UMC cites rising raw-material costs and its Singapore fab expansion. The company plans comprehensive price negotiations with customers next year. June revenue was NT$23.13bn, up 22.8% YoY, bringing first-half revenue to NT$129.77bn, up 11.3%.

The pricing move lands on improving fundamentals: UMC earlier guided 2Q wafer shipments up 7-9% QoQ with ASP up 1-3%, gross margin around 30%, and utilization rising above 80% on recovering communications demand and steady computer, consumer and industrial orders. UDN reports other major foundries are also lifting mature-node prices into 2H26 as recovering power semiconductor demand tightens capacity.

Linked stocks: 2303 TT, 2330 TT, GFS US

Sources: 聯電第2季營收來到12季高點 7月起彈性漲價 營收續增溫, 聯電Q2營收687.33億元 季增12%寫15季新高

先聲 First Word — Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources

Transcend's first half nearly doubles its entire 2025

Transcend Information (2451 TT) posted June revenue of NT$5.07bn, up 381.6% YoY, and record 2Q26 revenue of NT$18.82bn, up 482% YoY. First-half revenue of NT$32.44bn is already nearly double the company's full-2025 revenue of NT$17.13bn, showing how completely the memory price surge is flowing through Taiwan's module makers. (6 Jul 2026) Source: 創見6月營收年增3.8倍 Q2及上半年同寫歷年同期新高

Accton's June revenue jumps 61% on AI switch demand

Accton Technology (2345 TT) reported June revenue of NT$39.56bn, up 61.2% YoY and 38.2% MoM, with first-half revenue up 60.3% to NT$165.66bn. Accton builds the data-center switches that connect US hyperscalers' AI clusters, so its acceleration is a direct read on the pace of the AI network buildout. (6 Jul 2026) Source: 營收速報 - 智邦(2345)6月營收395.55億元年增率高達61.16％

Winway's test interfaces hit records despite a typhoon

Winway Technology (6515 TT) posted June revenue of NT$1.46bn, up 287.9% YoY, and record 2Q26 revenue of NT$3.52bn, up 18.2% QoQ, even with typhoon days disrupting shipments. The test-socket maker says CoWoS, CoPoS and co-packaged optics parts are driving high-end test demand, with AI customers keeping capacity full into 3Q26. (6 Jul 2026) Source: AI需求火熱 穎崴6月、Q2、上半年營收同創新高