A captain's watchlist, not a public recommendation. After Micron's record print and ~$50B Q4 guide confirmed the memory super-cycle, I'm concentrating on the picks-and-shovels of the AI build-out — compute, custom silicon, memory, foundry and lithography — companies whose order books are bound to physics, capex and multi-year customer agreements, not to a perfect interest-rate path. SK Hynix's Jul 10 Nasdaq ADR debut was the newest data point on that same thesis.
My read (Jun '26): still the core lock. Data-center demand is intact, the CUDA + networking moat holds, and BioNeMo / Halos push the platform beyond GPUs. The trade is crowded and headline-sensitive — own it, don't chase green days into the Fed.
core lockMy read: the cleanest structural counterweight to Nvidia. A 10GW OpenAI custom-ASIC deal, ~$73B backlog and ~60% projected AI-compute ASIC share by 2027 with Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta anchoring. Hyperscaler capex flows straight through it.
custom-silicon kingMy read: the super-cycle is now confirmed, not hoped-for. Record FQ3 ($41.5B rev, 85% gross margin), a ~$50B Q4 guide and multi-year Strategic Customer Agreements that lock pricing and make earnings durable. HBM4 is shipping in volume. Samsung's Jul 7 Q2 guide — op. profit ~₩89.4T, ~19x YoY, on 40–60% memory price gains and its first quarter of commercial HBM4 shipments — is independent, cross-vendor confirmation of the same cycle, not just a Micron story. Highest torque in the stack — expect sharp two-way swings.
memory super-cycleMy read (Jul '26): the HBM chokepoint becomes directly ownable. SK Hynix commands ~50–70% of global HBM share — feeding NVIDIA's GPUs — and its Jul 10 Nasdaq ADR debut (ticker SKHY, 10:1 vs KRX:000660) ends the old "Korea discount." Late-Jul SOX index inclusion forces passive buying; the ~30% pre-listing pullback and ~2.44% dilution are the entry cost. Adding it, not replacing Micron — different balance sheet, different FX/ADR-structure risk. Swapped in for Marvell this cycle: more differentiated exposure, a real re-rating catalyst.
hbm gatekeeperMy read: the company that physically makes the AI era. Every GPU and custom ASIC routes through its leading-edge nodes, and CoWoS advanced packaging is now a tighter constraint than fabrication itself. The lowest-drama way to own the whole build-out.
the chokepointMy read: the one true monopoly in the stack. No high-NA EUV, no denser chips — and its ~$400M machine is seen powering chipmaking for a decade. Lumpy orders and China headlines create the volatility; the moat is unmatched. Accumulate on capex-fear dips.
monopoly moatDrag a node to reposition it, scroll/pinch to zoom, click a node for detail. US models pull left, China models pull right — line style shows how each equity relates (solid = benefits, dashed = under pressure).