SK hynix (SKHY) shares surged 5.03% in pre-market trading on Wednesday, driven by a report that Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek is planning its first-ever direct investment in the South Korean stock market, with a specific focus on the memory chip giant.

The Asia Business Daily reported that Temasek is preparing to invest directly in both SK hynix and Samsung Electronics using its in-house team, and is currently discussing the investment timing with the Korean government. Temasek reportedly views AI memory semiconductors as deeply undervalued and is expanding its investments across the broader AI ecosystem, including chips, data centers, and cloud infrastructure. This news has ignited bullish sentiment, as it signals strong long-term foreign institutional confidence in the Korean 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, aiming to boost local monthly capacity by approximately 50% to meet surging enterprise SSD demand from AI data centers. The company also announced last week that it will disclose details of its shareholder return plan in the third quarter, further supporting investor confidence. During the prior Korean trading session, SK hynix shares rallied as much as 8.1% on the Temasek news.