Leading South Korean semiconductor giants Samsung and SK hynix are entering 2026 with critically low memory inventories amid forecasts of the tightest supply conditions in history, driven by soaring AI infrastructure investments and evolving demand patterns.
A warning from KB Securities that Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have entered the third quarter of 2026 with less than 10 days of memory inventory has rapidly become more than a routine supply-cycle call. The broker argues that the industry is moving towards “the tightest supply conditions in history”, with the risk that available memory for sale could become materially constrained in 2027 if current demand trends continue.
What makes the warning notable is the scale of the spending now sitting behind it. According to figures cited by Korea JoongAng Daily and Seoul Economic Daily, the largest cloud operators are now expected to spend $1.3 trillion on AI infrastructure in 2027, about 60 per cent more than in 2026. KB says memory is taking a steadily larger share of that build-out: 14 per cent in 2025, 40 per cent in 2026 and a projected 57 per cent in 2027. TrendForce is even more aggressive, putting that 2027 share at 68 per cent. Seoul Economic Daily also reported that cloud AI services, token-based billing, model hosting and so-called agentic AI are no longer experimental features but direct revenue lines, giving operators a clearer reason to keep expanding hardware budgets.
The supply problem is not simply that demand is rising. It is that the mix of demand is changing in a way that absorbs manufacturing capacity faster than older memory products did. DigiTimes reported that the strain is being felt at the same time across high-bandwidth memory, server DRAM and enterprise SSDs, all of which are tied to AI data-centre investment. HBM4, the next generation of high-bandwidth memory used alongside AI accelerators, is a particular pressure point because KB estimates it consumes roughly three times the wafer capacity of conventional DRAM. Tiger Brokers, reproducing the broker’s investor note, said KB expects DRAM and NAND bit demand to outstrip supply growth by more than 10 percentage points next year. DigiTimes added an important qualification: Samsung and SK hynix do not publicly disclose inventory at the level cited by KB, so the sub-10-day figure should be read as an analyst estimate rather than a company-reported metric.
The wider market data suggest the warning is not confined to a single product line. TechTimes, citing TrendForce’s second-quarter industry figures, said global DRAM revenue reached $154.73 billion between April and June 2026, up 59.5 per cent from the previous quarter. The same figures put Samsung on a 39.4 per cent share of global DRAM revenue and SK hynix on 24.9 per cent, leaving the two South Korean groups with roughly two-thirds of the market between them. That concentration matters: when both suppliers are simultaneously shifting more output towards premium AI memory, the effect on conventional supply can spread quickly across servers, storage and other enterprise demand.
The warning has landed after a sharp correction in the two shares, which helps explain why investors reacted so strongly. Seoul Economic Daily and Korea JoongAng Daily said Samsung and SK hynix had fallen 38 per cent from their peaks over the previous three months, leaving them trading at about three times expected 2027 earnings. KB has used that sell-off to argue that both companies have become unusually cheap relative to the earnings power implied by the current cycle, and has named them as its preferred semiconductor stocks.
That valuation case fed straight into the Seoul market on Monday, September 7. The Korea Times reported that the KOSPI closed at 6,995.39, up 4.61 per cent, as foreign investors bought a net 2.59 trillion won of shares and institutions bought 2.63 trillion won, while retail investors sold 6.82 trillion won. SK hynix rose 8.26 per cent to 1,783,000 won and Samsung gained 5.68 per cent to 270,000 won. The same report said Nomura also viewed the stocks as deeply undervalued and argued that global production capacity would need to double within four years and triple within six years to keep pace with demand, underlining how far the current build-out may still have to run.
The longer-term industry message is even starker. DigiTimes noted that SK hynix chief executive Kwak Noh-jung told Reuters in late August that he saw no clear sign of a downturn and expected the current shortage to persist through the end of 2030. That sits broadly in line with KB’s more immediate warning that the market is moving beyond an ordinary recovery phase and towards outright exhaustion of sellable supply. If that reading is correct, the debate is no longer about whether AI is lifting memory demand, but about how long manufacturers can keep redirecting wafer capacity into HBM and adjacent products before shortages spread more visibly across the rest of the memory market.
Disclaimer: This content is intended for informational purposes only. Readers are advised to exercise their own judgement, conduct due diligence, or consult a qualified expert before acting on any information provided.
