Samsung focused heavily on AI-driven growth, HBM4 development, and strategic positioning against competitors
• The company is intensifying efforts to regain leadership in the HBM segment, where SK Hynix has recently gained ground.It also presented AI-optimized DRAM and NAND solutions on the roadmap, emphasizing scalability and energy efficiency for data centers and HPC applications.
Kioxia and SanDisk have officially begun operations at their new semiconductor fabrication facility in Kitakami, Japan
• This facility incorporates advanced environmental technologies, including energy-efficient systems and water recycling, which is a long-standing collaboration in NAND flash memory production between two firms, aiming to support next-generation storage solutions for consumer and enterprise applications.
SK hynix officially started mass production of HBM4, featuring 36GB per chip and up to 2TB/s bandwidth
• This memory is optimized for NVIDIA’s Rubin AI accelerators, offering up to 60% speed improvement over previous generations. It’s also designed to meet the demands of AI servers, data centers, and edge computing.
Micron announced a $200 billion investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing
• The company is accelerating its memory production strategy by investing heavily in U.S.-based facilities, aiming to reshore memory production and reduce reliance on overseas manufacturing, especially for AI-driven high-bandwidth memory (HBM). It plans to phase out DDR4 and LPDDR4X production by late 2025 to early 2026.
WW SSD demand recovers from relatively lower level in Q2, and is expected to stay at a higher level than current stage in 2026.
Flash Sufficiency: maintain at low level since 2024. Suppliers have strengthened their production reduction efforts, concentrating manufacturing resources on AI-related demand.
Price Trend: overall NAND flash price is expected to increase continuously in Q4 with enterprise and cloud service provider (CSP) demand surging—driven by AI infrastructure expansion and server upgrades.
DRAM Sufficiency: Supply has come under significant pressure from Q4’25 through 2026 1H, as manufacturers phase out DDR4 production and reallocate capacity toward high-demand applications from the CSPs. This shift has led to a pronounced tightening in overall DRAM availability.
Price Trend: DDR4 prices remain high due to ongoing production cuts. Strong demand from CSPs and enterprise servers has tightened DDR5 supply, with manufacturers prioritizing DDR5 and HBM, driving prices up through Q4.
