SK hynix shares surged 6.42% in pre-market trading on Wednesday, extending a strong rally from the prior Korean session. The advance was fueled by a combination of bullish catalysts, including a report that Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek is planning its first direct investment in the South Korean stock market, specifically targeting SK hynix and Samsung Electronics, and news that the company's NAND subsidiary is significantly expanding capacity in China to meet surging AI-driven demand.

The Asia Business Daily reported that Temasek has approached South Korean government officials to discuss the timing of a direct investment in the two memory chip giants. Temasek reportedly views memory semiconductors as deeply undervalued within the broader AI value chain and aims to increase its AI-related portfolio allocation to 15% over the next five years. This marks a potential first-ever direct equity investment by the fund in the Korean market, signaling strong long-term institutional confidence in the memory sector.

Adding to the positive momentum, SK hynix's NAND subsidiary Solidigm has restarted construction of its second NAND flash factory in Dalian, China, with plans to boost local monthly capacity by approximately 50%. The expansion is driven by booming enterprise SSD demand from AI data centers. Separately, SK hynix has also announced it will disclose details of its shareholder return plan in the third quarter, further supporting investor sentiment and expectations of record cash returns.