KB Securities said in a report on the 7th that a surge in AI infrastructure
investment could trigger an unprecedented memory-chip supply shortage. The
broker raised global hyperscaler AI infra spending for next year to $1.3 tln, up
60% YoY, and projects storage chips’ share of AI infra spend to rise from 14% in
2025 to 40% in 2026 and 57% in 2027; TrendForce even forecasts 68% next year.
After recent share-price adjustments, KB says Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix
are in undervalued territory and could see a "strong re-rating." KB’s research
head Kim Dong-won said inventories at Samsung and SK Hynix fell to under 10 days
by Q3, risking exhaustion of sellable stock. KB warned HBM4 mass production will
crowd out general DRAM capacity—HBM4 wafer consumption is roughly three times
that of generic DRAM—further tightening supply. The broker expects DRAM and NAND
bit demand growth to outpace supply growth by more than 10 percentage points
next year, widening the supply-demand gap.
