SK Hynix's Solidigm Held Bank Pitch Meetings for a Possible $150 Billion IPO, Reuters Reports

Solidigm, the Rancho Cordova, California-based NAND flash and solid-state drive subsidiary of South Korea's SK hynix, spent this week meeting with investment banks competing for a role in a possible U.S. IPO, according to Reuters, which cited three people familiar with the matter. A fourth source described the pitch meetings, commonly known on Wall Street as a "bake-off," as a concrete step toward what could become the largest semiconductor listing in U.S. history.

The numbers being floated are enormous. Sources told Reuters the offering, targeted as early as 2027, could value Solidigm at up to $150 billion and raise roughly $15 billion. If it happens at that size, it would eclipse Arm's $54.5 billion Nasdaq listing in 2023 and Cerebras Systems' $56.4 billion IPO earlier this year, according to Korea JoongAng Daily.

SK hynix bought the NAND and SSD business from Intel in a deal structured over several years, paying roughly $7 billion upfront and completing a final $1.9 billion payment in March 2025, bringing the total to about $9 billion, according to figures reported by Traders Agency. A $150 billion valuation would be nearly 17 times that original purchase price. That's a mathematical comparison, not a forecast of what the IPO would actually price at.

Digitimes and the Korea Economic Daily reported a much smaller pre-IPO fundraising round weeks earlier, with a valuation closer to $36 billion (roughly 50 trillion won) and a capital raise of $3.5 billion to $7 billion, ROIC.ai reported. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were reportedly under consideration for underwriting roles at that earlier, smaller stage.

SK hynix has not confirmed any of it. Following a September 4 clarification, the parent company said only that it was reviewing ways to improve Solidigm's competitiveness, with no decision made, according to ROIC.ai. That leaves the $150 billion figure in speculation territory for now, no matter how many banks showed up to pitch.

SK hynix is reportedly converting the legacy Solidigm entity into a U.S.-based "AI Company" investment platform backed by up to $10 billion in capital-call commitments, while the actual NAND and SSD manufacturing business continues under a separate new subsidiary that keeps the Solidigm name, per ROIC.ai. That split means any future investor would need to know exactly which assets, liabilities and intellectual property sit inside whichever entity goes public. An IPO under that structure could pitch two very different stories at once: a real, revenue-generating storage business, and a harder-to-price AI platform bet.

Solidigm's underlying business has real numbers behind it. The company says it held about 24% of the enterprise SSD market as of the first quarter of 2025, though that figure comes from a company executive and hasn't been independently audited, according to ROIC.ai. Combined with SK hynix's broader NAND operations, the group ranked second among NAND suppliers in the first quarter of 2026 with $7.53 billion in revenue and 17.6% market share, per TrendForce data cited by ROIC.ai. After years of losses following its separation from Intel, Solidigm turned profitable in 2025 as demand for its high-capacity QLC drives rose alongside prices, according to Blocks and Files reporting relayed by Traders Agency.

Solidigm's wafer fabrication currently happens at a plant in Dalian, China, run by a separate SK hynix entity, according to Traders Agency. But the company is reportedly weighing a NAND plant in upstate New York, as Washington pushes for more domestic chip production, Korea JoongAng Daily reported. SK hynix separately is exploring a production base in Ohio using an existing Intel facility, partly out of caution over further U.S. tariffs, while SK hynix and Samsung are moving ahead with a roughly $592 billion memory chip cluster in southwest Korea aimed at meeting AI-driven demand within four years.

A former SK hynix president, Roh Jong-won, who Blocks and Files identified as the architect of the original Intel NAND deal, has set up a U.S. private equity firm called Techbridge Investment to invest in a future Solidigm listing alongside Korean partner Stonebridge, targeting a joint commitment of up to $1.44 billion, according to Traders Agency.

Deal size, timing and even which legal entity would go public remain open questions, and sources cautioned to Reuters that everything could change depending on market conditions. The next concrete signal will be whether SK hynix names an underwriter, files paperwork with the SEC, or issues another public statement narrowing the gap between a $36 billion whisper number from weeks ago and a $150 billion figure from bankers this week.