Supercycle for Korean chipmakers to continue into next year: Nuveen CIO

Saira Malik, CIO of Nuveen LLC

The supercycle for South Korean semiconductor companies is expected to continue into next year, according to Saira Malik, chief investment officer at Nuveen LLC.

Her remarks come as the benchmark Kospi surpassed the 5,000 mark for the first time on the back of a semiconductor rally.

In an exclusive interview with Maeil Business on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Malik said that Korea has boarded an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven semiconductor supercycle and that the trend will strongly drive export-led growth through 2027.

Nuveen oversees around $1.4 trillion in assets under management.

Malik forecast explosive growth in Korea’s chip exports this year, noting that driven by a surge in AI demand, Korea’s semiconductor exports will jump 50 percent on year in 2026.

This suggests that the recent sharp rally in semiconductor stocks in the Korean market is based not merely on expectations but on tangible global demand.

She also singled out Samsung Electronics Co. among individual companies.

As Samsung Electronics begins supplying high-bandwidth memory for Nvidia Corp.’s next-generation architecture, its market dominance will rise dramatically, she said.

Malik added that Samsung Electronics’ share of the HBM market – currently around 16 percent – is expected to more than double to 35 percent by 2026.

Malik also projected that the S&P 500 index will reach 7,500 by the end of the year.