South korea: South Korea's chipmaker SK hynix achieved record-high earnings in the second quarter, driven by robust sales of memory chips utilized in generative artificial intelligence (AI) chipsets, the company announced on Thursday.

According to Namibia Press Agency, SK hynix's revenue increased by 35.4 percent year-over-year to 22.23 trillion won (16.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the April-June timeframe. The company's operating profit rose by 68.5 percent to 9.21 trillion won (6.7 billion dollars), while net income surged 69.8 percent to 7 trillion won (5.1 billion dollars) during the same period. Both revenue and operating profit reached all-time highs, surpassing previous records set in the fourth quarter of last year.

The company attributed this financial success to global big-tech firms' aggressive investment in AI, which led to a steady increase in demand for AI memory chips. SK hynix noted that shipments of both DRAM and NAND flash memory chips exceeded expectations.

SK hynix anticipates that growing competition among big-tech companies to enhance AI model inference will further boost demand for high-performance and high-capacity memory products. The company also highlighted that investment by countries in building sovereign AI would contribute to sustained long-term demand for memory. Sovereign AI refers to a nation's capability to develop an independent AI system with its own infrastructure, data, talent, and business network.