Investors Bet Samsung’s Smaller Memory Chip Rival SK Hynix Will Be an AI Winner

  • SK Hynix has jumped 67% this year on HBM chip; Samsung up 24%
  • Samsung needs big client like Nvidia, good yields to catch up
Samsung Electronics Co.'s semiconductor manufacturing plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province.Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
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Shares of Samsung Electronics Co. are on track to underperform those of its smaller memory-chip rival SK Hynix Inc. by the most in a decade as investors bet the latter will be the winner in artificial intelligence.

SK Hynix has surged 67% this year thanks to its deal to supply premium high-bandwidth memory chips to Nvidia Corp., trouncing Samsung, which is up 24% as it struggles to get its HBM offering off the ground. That gap may widen further judging by options data, which show the put-to-call ratio on Samsung more than double that of SK Hynix.