SEOUL: Shares of South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix surged on Wednesday after peer Samsung Electronics forecast market-beating quarterly earnings, fuelling expectations about SK Hynix's results.

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday projected its first-quarter operating profit would jump more than eight-fold, beating analyst estimates as booming demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure stretched supply and drove chip prices higher.

Korea Investment & Securities on Wednesday raised its estimate for SK Hynix's operating profit full-year by 28 per cent to 216 trillion won (US$146.55 billion), more than quadruple from 2025, due to stronger-than-expected price increases of both DRAM and NAND chips.

SK Hynix shares traded up 15 per cent at 1,050,000 won (US$712.20) each, outperforming Samsung's 8.7 per cent gain and the wider market's 7 per cent rise.

SK Hynix, the world's second-biggest memory chip maker after Samsung Electronics, is set to report January-March earnings later this month.