South Korea’s blistering stock-market rally has just produced the world’s latest $1 trillion company.
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On Tuesday, Samsung Electronics surged as much as 13%, pushing its market valuation pas $1 trillion as the South Korean chip giant rides the artificial-intelligence boom.
Samsung Electronics’ stock has more than doubled this year in a stunning rally that makes it only the second Asian company — after Taiwanese chip titan TSMC — to join the $1 trillion club.
The broader South Korean market also rallied sharply, buoyed by gains in Samsung and rival SK Hynix, whose shares jumped 10% on Tuesday. SK Hynix stock has also more than doubled this year.
The surge sent South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index soaring as much as 6%, smashing through the 7,000 level. Investors are piling into AI-linked stocks amid improving global risk sentiment, after President Donald Trump expressed optimism about a potential deal over the war in Iran.
The Kospi is up about 70% this year, making it the best-performing major stock market globally in 2026. By comparison, the S&P 500 has gained about 6% this year, while the Nasdaq Composite is up 9%.
The explosive gains — the Kospi has tripled since the start of 2025 — mark a dramatic reversal for a market long weighed down by the so-called “Korea discount.”
Seoul has spent years trying to reverse that reputation through market reforms aimed at improving corporate governance and boosting shareholder returns.
Those efforts have coincided with a global AI spending frenzy that has drawn billions of dollars into Korean equities from both domestic retail traders and foreign investors.
“The AI infrastructure cycle is increasingly dominant, with 80% of the growth concentrated in semiconductor exporters, particularly from South Korea,” equity strategists at Swiss private bank Lombard Odier wrote on Tuesday.
Supply bottlenecks for such chips are supporting pricing power, they added.
Samsung Electronics has emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of that boom, reporting a 750% surge in first-quarter operating profit to a record high.
Samsung Electronics now joins a small group of companies valued at more than $1 trillion, including Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Saudi Aramco.
Still, South Korea’s market has been volatile amid geopolitical uncertainty this year, even as the AI-driven rally powers ahead.
Samsung Electronics is also facing the risk of union strikes later this month over bonus disputes.
