Information
Regardless of efforts to broaden capability, semiconductor gamers are struggling to maintain tempo with demand
Because the AI increase continues to achieve momentum, two of the world’s main chipmakers, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, are warning that their enlargement plans won’t transfer quick sufficient to ease provide chain bottlenecks.
The businesses, each which reported their newest monetary outcomes this week, stated that the reminiscence chip provide disaster could be unlikely to alleviate for the subsequent two years regardless of their finest efforts.
“We’re planning a considerable enhance in our capital expenditure in 2026 as AI-driven demand is prone to proceed,” stated Kim Jae-june, government vice-president of Samsung’s reminiscence enterprise, as reported by the Monetary Occasions. “However provide shortages are prone to worsen as capability enlargement is anticipated to be restricted this yr and subsequent.”
SK Hynix has plans to take a position 19 trillion received ($12.9bn) within the development of a semiconductor packaging facility in Cheongju, whereas Samsung is investing 60 trillion received ($41.5 billion) in its P5 manufacturing unit in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, which broke floor in November final yr.
Each investments are pushed by the surge in demand for Excessive Bandwidth Reminiscence (HBM), a vital a part of AI accelerators and information centre GPUs, in addition to different reminiscence chip expertise; SK Hynix says it expects the HBM market to proceed to develop considerably between 2025 and 2030, with projections indicating a compound annual progress charge of 33% till 2030.
Nevertheless, the extra capability being generated from these new services will take time to understand.
“Demand is rising sharply, nevertheless it takes time to broaden capability, so the mismatch in demand and provide is worsening, pushing chip costs greater,” added Track Hyun-jong, president of SK Hynix, in the identical FT report.
The extent of the reminiscence bottleneck is already being felt acutely internationally. The price of dynamic random entry reminiscence (DRAM), for instance, has skyrocketed since 2024, and is ready to double once more this yr.
On the similar time, the trade can also be within the midst of a major shift, transferring from the present HBM3E expertise to the extra superior HBM4. These subsequent technology reminiscence chips will provide greater information switch speeds (exceeding 1 TBps per stack) and greater than double the bandwidth of HBM3E, making them supreme for AI information centres.
SK Hynix is presently the worldwide chief on this newest reminiscence design, accounting for roughly 60% of the general market, in accordance with Macquarie Fairness Analysis. Samsung, nevertheless, is anticipated to quickly problem this place, starting manufacturing of its personal HBM4 chips subsequent month.
Evidently, this reminiscence bottleneck is making each SK Hynix and Samsung very wealthy.
SK Hynix reported a internet revenue of 97.15 trillion received ($67.9 billion), up 46.8% year-on-year, whereas Samsung noticed earnings rise to 45.21 trillion received ($31.6 billion, up 31.2% year-on-year.
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