South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix announced on Thursday that its first-quarter net profit surged nearly 400 percent year-on-year to a record 40.34 trillion won (US$27.3 billion), marking the first time a South Korean chipmaker has exceeded 50 trillion won in quarterly sales. The company credited booming demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM) — specialised chips used to power AI servers — along with rising global DRAM prices, even as the first quarter is typically a slow season for the industry. SK Hynix, the dominant player in the global HBM market, said it expects demand to keep growing as AI applications expand, and outlined plans to begin mass production of its next-generation HBM4E chips in 2027.