Solidigm Won’t Go Public for Now, and SK hynix Still Has a U.S. Fab to Pay For

Solidigm needs more factory space in the U.S. to keep up with demand for the high-capacity SSDs that go into AI data centers. Its parent, SK hynix, has now set aside one way of paying for it, at least for the time being: the storage maker will stop studying a pre-IPO round and a public listing.

SK hynix put out the decision in a newsroom statement on Friday in Seoul, while it was still Thursday in New York. It blamed “recent capital market conditions and share price trends” and a “broader correction in semiconductor stocks.” It also said the need for new money hadn’t gone away. “This decision does not reflect any change in Solidigm’s growth prospects or investment needs,” SK hynix said.

The numbers that had been floated were large. People familiar with the plans had told Reuters a share sale could raise $15 billion and value Solidigm at $150 billion. SK hynix bought the business from Intel in a $9 billion deal in 2021, the Sacramento Bee noted. Solidigm is based in Rancho Cordova, Calif., and has about 700 of its 2,100 employees in the Sacramento area.

Seoul’s shareholder rules were part of the picture

Market jitters weren’t the only pressure. SK hynix itself started trading on Nasdaq in July, and South Korea tightened its rules on dual listings that same month to strengthen shareholder protections. On Monday, Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Lee Chan-jin said a Solidigm listing would violate those rules, and Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eog-weon said Thursday it would fall under the guidelines, The Korea Times reported. Industry sources told the paper the regulators’ stance may have counted for more than the market did.

Investors in the parent liked the outcome. SK hynix shares closed 4.4% higher on a flat day for the broader market, Reuters reported. Yang Hyun-kyung, a researcher at iM Securities, told The Korea Times the move “could also ease worries about a dual-listing discount and equity dilution.”

SK hynix had already warned on Oct. 1, in a clarification about Solidigm, that it weighs any use of outside money against the cost to existing shareholders, and that its capital has to stretch across HBM, server DRAM and enterprise SSDs.

Other AI listings have stalled too

Reuters listed the Nvidia-backed Firmus listing in Australia and a Singapore REIT listing for Blackstone-backed AirTrunk among other deals put on hold. Shares of CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN have each lost well over 30% in October, CNBC reported, while borrowing costs for AI builders have climbed.

Demand, meanwhile, hasn’t let up. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said this week that AWS has sold a good chunk of its 2028 capacity, and Solidigm co-CEO Xin Guo said in an interview this summer that he “cannot foresee a limit” to the upswing in demand, the Sacramento Bee reported.

SK hynix gave no timeline or dollar figure for the new U.S. capacity, saying only that it will keep weighing “investment timing, scale, and financing methods.” The Korea Corporate Governance Forum, which welcomed the decision, said the parent could put capital in through its AI Company entity instead, pointing to brokerage estimates that put SK hynix’s cash at 456 trillion won, about $344 billion, by the end of 2027.