SK Chairman Chey Urges Investors to Hold SK Hynix for AI-Driven Memory Demand

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said demand for memory chips will grow exponentially in the age of artificial intelligence, urging investors to hold SK Hynix shares for the long term rather than trade in and out of the stock. He also said AI adoption will drive structural growth in the memory industry and hasten the end of degree-based hiring.

Speaking at an AI discussion at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry's summer forum in Jeju on July 17, Chey said memory will remain essential and that, over time, the stock will trend higher. While he said he did not know where the share price would be next month, he added that holding the stock rather than repeatedly buying and selling it was a better way to preserve wealth.

Chey described AI as a 4-year-old child that cannot reach adulthood without memory, underscoring that demand for such chips will inevitably rise exponentially. He said the stock's sudden tenfold surge reflected that dynamic. When the outlook improves, shares rise, but they can also drop sharply when confidence weakens, he said, adding that the rally had been so rapid that reality sometimes needs time to catch up.

Asked what capabilities will matter in the AI era, Chey pointed to four kinds of "muscle": thinking, adaptability, empathy and physical skills. Future education should move away from rote learning and focus instead on what helps human life, he said. He also noted that SK Hynix recently announced that a college diploma is no longer required in hiring, adding that the era when only university graduates were seen as talent is over.

Even if AI appears to understand, it cannot feel empathy, Chey said, arguing that empathy in both attitude and action will become more important. He also said entrepreneurship will increase, along with failure, making resilience more valuable. He urged people to treat failure as a lesson and become better from it.

Chey said the purpose of AI development is not cost cutting. Training AI agents to lift productivity does not mean workers will lose their jobs, he said. Instead of focusing first on reducing costs, companies should figure out what other work their employees can do.

Companies need to keep creating work they have not done before and come up with ideas they had not previously imagined, he said, adding that this is how businesses grow. Workers, meanwhile, can become all-round players rather than being confined to a single role, and may increasingly work as freelancers with multiple jobs instead of staying with one company.

Chey also referred to SK Hynix's recent decision to eliminate academic background requirements entirely in rolling recruitment for entry-level hires. The old method of selecting people through tests and interviews will disappear, he said, adding that SK Hynix could hire students who have graduated from high school or are still in college and may even recruit younger people.

Kang Kyung-ju, Hankyung.com reporter qurasoha@hankyung.com