Two memory products entrepreneurs have soared their fortunes this year thanks to strong demand from AI giants.
David Sun, 74, and John Tu, 84, are co-founders and 50-50 owners of Kingston Technology, a leading manufacturer of computer drives and memory modules. Mr. Sun is the California company’s executive director and Mr. Tu is its president and CEO.
Their respective net worths have jumped 44%, or nearly $14 billion, since the beginning of January, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
So far this year, only Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Czechoslovakia Group CEO Michal Strnado and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim have achieved more wealth.
Sun and Tu also outperformed Jim, Alice, and Rob Walton. As of Thursday’s close, the heirs to Walmart’s fortune each gained about $13 billion for the year.
The two biggest names in the memory world are worth about $45 billion, ranking 45th and 46th, respectively, ahead of Mackenzie Scott, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, and Miriam Adelson.
Mr. Son and Mr. Tu were born in Taiwan and mainland China, respectively, studied electrical engineering in college and immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, according to Bloomberg. They met in Los Angeles, bonded over basketball, and went into business together.
The two founded storage company Cummington in 1982 and sold it four years later for $6 million, according to Bloomberg. They lost all their savings in the Black Monday crash of 1987, but founded Kingston and sold 80% of it to SoftBank in 1996 for $1.5 billion. The stock was bought back in 1999 for $450 million.
AI hyperscalers are looking for memory chips to build data centers, fueling a severe global shortage and sending prices soaring.
This “memory supercycle” promises higher revenue and profits for memory products companies, which has driven up stock prices in recent months.
For example, Micron Technology’s stock has more than quadrupled in the past 12 months, valuing the memory chip maker at $470 billion. That’s more than Mastercard, Oracle, Costco, Bank of America, and Home Depot.
