Reports that Temasek is considering direct investments in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix sparked a sharp rally in South Korean chip shares on August 12, with both stocks rising more than 8% intraday and SK Hynix's U.S.-listed ADR climbing about 9% at one point. Korean media said the Singapore sovereign wealth fund has recently engaged with the South Korean government on possible investments and is assessing timing, potentially marking its first direct entry into the South Korean securities market through internal staff rather than external asset managers. Bloomberg and other outlets later said Temasek has not confirmed any specific plan, leaving the move in the realm of market speculation rather than a completed investment. The market interest centers on memory semiconductors, especially HBM (high-bandwidth memory for AI processing) and high-speed DRAM, which have become critical to AI infrastructure as server deployments expand. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for nearly 80% of the global HBM market, while valuation comparisons cited in the report showed the two Korean companies trading at much lower forward P/E multiples than Kioxia, TSMC, and Micron Technology. The report argued that global long-term investors still see AI as an attractive structural theme even as concerns about overheating grow, though it also flagged risks including China production exposure, U.S. export-control policy shifts, capacity expansion, and future competition from Chinese memory makers. The reported interest also fits Temasek's broader AI push. Its fiscal 2026 annual report showed net portfolio value of S$518 billion at end-March, with AI-related investments at about 6% of the portfolio and a goal of raising that share to as much as 15% by 2031 across areas including semiconductors, data centers, cloud services, foundation models, and software infrastructure.