KOSPI Reclaims 7,000 Points: How Is the Expansion of AI Capital Expenditure Reshaping the Trading Outlook for Storage Chip Stocks?

On July 23, 2026, South Korea’s KOSPI (Korea Composite Stock Price Index) sharply surged intraday, with gains exceeding 3%, reclaiming the integer 7,000-point threshold. As of intraday trading that day, the KOSPI was at 7,042.08 points, up 3.6%. The core force driving this rebound came from the semiconductor sector: SK hynix rose nearly 5% during the session, while Samsung Electronics rose more than 4%. The two storage-chip giants became the main drivers pushing the index back to key levels.

This market move is not an isolated event. Against the macro backdrop of continued expansion in global AI compute infrastructure investment, South Korea—an essential hub in the global storage-chip supply chain—is undergoing a value reappraisal driven by structural demand.

How the AI giants’ capital expenditure expansion transmits into the Korean stock market

The strong performance of the Korean stock market on July 23 was directly catalyzed by the earnings release after the U.S. market close overnight of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Alphabet not only delivered quarterly results that beat expectations—second-quarter revenue rose 24% year over year to $119.8 billion, and Google Cloud revenue surged 82%, driven by demand for AI infrastructure and enterprise-level AI solutions—but more importantly, the company raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance from the previous range of $180 billion to $190 billion to $195 billion to $205 billion. During the earnings call, company executives clearly stated, “We are still in an environment with supply constraints,” with demand remaining very strong from both external cloud customers and the company’s internal needs.

This signal was quickly interpreted by global capital markets as clear evidence that AI compute infrastructure investment has not yet topped out. Alphabet is not the only example. Morgan Stanley had previously raised its 2026 capital expenditure outlook for large U.S. technology giants from $433 billion one year earlier to $805 billion, and expects it could reach $1.1 trillion in 2027. The AI compute arms race has expanded beyond a single-cycle GPU procurement, evolving into a systemic capex cycle covering the full chain, including HBM storage, DRAM, NAND, advanced packaging, data center CPUs, optical interconnect systems, and power equipment.

For the Korean stock market, the significance of this trend lies in the fact that every dollar of AI capital expenditure by global tech giants ultimately translates into a substantial share of procurement demand for storage chips—while the world’s most advanced storage-chip production capacity is highly concentrated in just two Korean companies: Samsung Electronics and SK hynix.

From AI compute to storage chips: the key path of demand transmission

To understand the link between the KOSPI and AI capital expenditures, it is necessary to clarify the transmission path from compute investment to storage-chip demand.

The storage architecture of AI servers differs fundamentally from that of traditional data centers. Institutional forecasts indicate that in 2026, the share of AI-related DRAM demand will exceed 53%. AI training and inference drive exponential growth in demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), server DRAM, and enterprise SSDs. Take HBM as an example: this high-performance storage product specially designed for AI chips has become a key bottleneck constraining the supply of AI compute capacity. As early as October 2025, Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron successively disclosed that their next-generation HBM 2026 production capacity had largely already been reserved. By the first quarter of 2026, the HBM capacity of the three major original equipment manufacturers was completely sold out.

Structural constraints on the supply side are also worth noting. The wafer capacity required per unit of HBM is about 2.5 to 3 times that of conventional DDR5. This means that adding one more wafer of HBM production capacity inevitably crowds out the production capacity space for several chips of general-purpose DRAM. TrendForce data shows that the share of HBM wafer investment among the three major suppliers rose from about 18% in 2025 to about 22% in 2026, and is expected to further rise to about 30% in 2027. Continuous crowding-out of capacity by high-end products structurally compresses the effective supply of general-purpose DRAM, thereby extending the entire storage industry’s favorable cycle.

It is precisely under this supply-demand landscape that storage-chip prices enter a sustained upward channel. In the first half of 2026, the global storage-chip industry was in a super boom cycle once in fifteen years. DRAM and NAND contract prices rose sharply for two consecutive quarters. TrendForce expects that in the third quarter of 2026, contract prices for traditional DRAM will increase quarter over quarter by 13% to 18%, while NAND flash contract prices will increase quarter over quarter by 10% to 15%. UBS further raised its outlook, arguing that after DDR contract prices surged 67% in the second quarter, they will rise another 32% in the third quarter.

How the storage-chip super cycle reshapes industry profit expectations

The continued rise in prices is translating into improved profitability for storage-chip manufacturers. With capacity fully tight and pricing power shifting toward the supply side, market expectations for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix results have continued to be revised upward.

The magnitude of capital expenditure expansion provides insight into companies’ assessment of future demand. Samsung Electronics plans total investment (including R&D) of more than 110 trillion Korean won (about $7.33 billion) in 2026, marking the first time it has surpassed the 100 trillion Korean won level, and it also explicitly said in its earnings briefing that capital expenditures for its storage business in 2026 will increase significantly. SK hynix’s capital expenditure in 2025 was about 30.2 trillion Korean won (about $2.56 billion), and it is expected to remain at a substantial increase in 2026. Market consensus expects SK hynix’s capital spending in 2026 to reach $31 billion, further increasing to $37.5 billion in 2027 and expanding to $44 billion in 2028. Compared with the highest annual capital expenditure level of about $15 billion in the past decade, the investment scale over the next three years will be far above historical peaks, with the investment amounts in each of the next three years significantly exceeding the prior record high.

The two giants’ capacity expansion plans are not short-term moves; they are based on judgments that AI-driven storage demand will grow structurally over the long term. The Samsung Group has committed to invest 2,655 trillion Korean won in South Korea, including 2,450 trillion Korean won by Samsung Electronics during 2026 to 2040, of which 2,100 trillion Korean won will be in semiconductors. SK Group has announced total investment of 210 billion Korean won. These investments cover the entire industry chain, from wafer fabs and HBM production lines to advanced packaging.

South Korea’s unique positioning as the core of the global semiconductor supply chain

The Korean stock market is highly sensitive to this round of AI capital expenditure expansion because of the country’s irreplaceable role in the global semiconductor supply chain.

In terms of capacity distribution, according to Yole data, in 2024 the combined global monthly output capacity for DRAM and NAND was about 3.2 million wafers, with South Korea accounting for about 45%, Mainland China 24%, and Taiwan 16%. Global storage manufacturing remains highly concentrated in East Asia, and South Korea is the single country with the largest share. In HBM, the core AI storage category, the dominance of Korean firms is even more pronounced—Samsung and SK hynix together hold more than 80% of the global HBM market share.

This industrial position is directly reflected in South Korea’s trade data. From July 1 to July 20, 2026, South Korea’s total exports reached $54.9 billion, up 52.3% year over year, setting a record high for the same period. Semiconductor exports rose 180.6% year over year to $22.1 billion, accounting for 40.3% of total exports. From the beginning of the year to July 20, South Korea’s cumulative trade surplus had reached $149.9 billion, 5.4 times the surplus for the same period last year, even approaching nearly twice last year’s full-year trade surplus. This data clearly shows that AI-driven storage-chip demand has become the most core engine behind South Korea’s export growth.

Foreign capital returning and sentiment repair: synchronized validation of the funding picture

The KOSPI’s jump on July 23 reflects not only fundamentals but also synchronized validation from the funding picture.

According to data from the Korea Exchange, net foreign buying on the day totaled 326.4 billion Korean won. In the previous trading day, overseas investors collectively recorded net buying of 2.6 trillion Korean won in the securities market, of which net buying in the semiconductor sector was 1.7 trillion Korean won—its largest single-day net buy since May 6. The large-scale return of foreign capital indicates that international capital is re-pricing the value of South Korean semiconductor assets within the AI cycle.

In terms of sector performance, the electrical and electronics sector led the KOSPI higher with a gain of 4.43%, while sectors such as manufacturing, large-cap heavyweights, power and natural gas, and information technology also rose in tandem. Samsung Electronics closed at 271,250 Korean won, up 4.13% for the day; SK hynix closed at 1,917,000 Korean won, up 4.75%. The broad strength of technology heavyweight stocks reflects that market consensus is forming that South Korea’s entire semiconductor industry chain will benefit overall from the expansion of AI capital expenditures.

A balanced view of continued momentum and potential risks

Beyond optimistic sentiment, it is also necessary to objectively examine the structural contradictions the industry faces.

On the demand side, growth in AI-driven storage demand has not shown signs of slowing down. TrendForce expects a supply gap of 4% to 5% for NAND in 2026, and the imbalance may not ease until the second half of 2027. As Intel and AMD’s next-generation server platforms begin ramping up in the second half of 2026, global server shipments are expected to grow 17% for the full year, further boosting storage demand. Nomura Securities believes the industry’s core contradiction globally remains severe supply shortages, and that AI-driven structural demand growth has not yet peaked.

However, risks must also be taken seriously. While Alphabet raised its capital expenditure guidance, for the first time in its history it recorded negative cash flow, and its share price fell by more than 3% after the market close. Large-scale AI capital expenditures are putting pressure on tech companies’ free cash flow; if future returns on capital fail to meet expectations, it is not out of the question that major players adjust their investment pace. In addition, once Samsung and SK hynix’s large-scale capacity expansion plans move into concentrated production, they could potentially change the supply-demand balance in the medium term. Still, given the ongoing crowding-out effect of HBM on general DRAM capacity and the long-term structural characteristics of AI demand, the likelihood of the industry entering a traditional period of oversupply still appears relatively low at present.

Summary

On July 23, 2026, the Korean KOSPI surged more than 3% and returned above 7,000 points. On the surface, the immediate catalyst was Google Alphabet’s raising of its capital expenditure guidance beyond expectations; at a deeper level, the key logic is that global AI compute infrastructure investment continues to drive storage-chip demand. With Samsung Electronics and SK hynix as the absolute core players in global storage-chip capacity, they are positioned to benefit most directly from this structural trend.

From the macro narrative of AI capital expenditures to the micro transmission of storage-chip supply-demand gaps, and then to synchronized validation via South Korea’s trade data, this KOSPI rebound has support on multiple fronts: fundamentals, funding flows, and the industry. The storage-chip industry is undergoing a paradigm shift from traditional cyclical fluctuations to long-term structural demand driven by AI. The duration and depth of this shift will largely determine the scope for re-valuing South Korea’s semiconductor industry chain.

For participants focused on investments across the global technology industry chain, the evolution of South Korea’s semiconductor sector’s role across the AI capital expenditure cycle will remain a core issue worth continuously tracking for a considerable period of time.

FAQ

Q1: What is the direct reason for the KOSPI’s sharp rise in South Korea on July 23?

The direct reason is that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, released earnings that beat expectations overnight and raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $195 billion to $205 billion. The market interpreted this as a signal that AI infrastructure investment will continue to expand, thereby boosting expectations for demand for South Korean storage-chip manufacturers.

Q2: Why did SK hynix and Samsung Electronics rise far more than the overall KOSPI?

SK hynix and Samsung Electronics are core suppliers of global storage chips (especially HBM required for AI). Every $1 of AI capital expenditures ultimately translates into a substantial share of procurement demand for storage chips, and these two companies together account for more than 80% of the global HBM market. Therefore, positive developments for the AI investment theme will be reflected directly and concentratedly in these two individual stocks.

Q3: How long can the trend of higher storage-chip prices continue?

Based on data from institutions such as TrendForce, in the first half of 2026 the global storage-chip industry is in a super boom cycle once every fifteen years. TrendForce expects that shortages in NAND supply due to supply-demand imbalance will not likely ease until the second half of 2027. However, the exact duration depends on the continuity of AI capital expenditures and the capacity expansion pace of major manufacturers.

Q4: Where does South Korea’s semiconductor industry stand in the global AI supply chain?

South Korea is the center of global storage-chip manufacturing, accounting for about 45% of the world’s combined monthly DRAM and NAND capacity. In the AI-dedicated HBM segment, Samsung and SK hynix together hold more than 80% of the global market share. In the first 20 days before July 2026, South Korea’s semiconductor exports grew 180.6% year over year, accounting for 40.3% of total exports.

Q5: How can investors participate in related investment opportunities through Gate?

Gate has launched real U.S. stock trading services, supporting trading in more than 10,000 U.S. listed stocks. Users can use USDT to trade real stocks listed on major U.S. exchanges such as the NYSE and Nasdaq. In addition, Gate also provides 7×24-hour stock trading services, supporting continuous trading across the U.S., Hong Kong, and South Korea.