Samsung is cashing on its AI memory chips as demand surges

Since GenAI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity, hit the market, the demand for AI has been skyrocketing. These tools run on servers with AI accelerators, and one of the main components of these pieces of hardware is high-bandwidth memory (HBM). As such, the demand for AI accelerators and HBM has also been increasing sharply. 

New AI accelerators, such as Nvidia’s H200, use the HBM3E memory. Currently, there are only three brands making it: Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. While the demand for HBM3E has gone up significantly, its supply has increased only marginally. Higher demand and lower supply result in a price hike. Well, Samsung and SK Hynix are planning to take full advantage of this situation. 

On X, @jukan05 claims that Samsung and SK Hynix are increasing the prices of their HBM3E chips by 20%. According to the tipster, the price hike is driven by China approving Nvidia’s H200 imports in the country. This move will increase Samsung’s revenue, as well as profits from the memory chip manufacturing division.

On a related note, Samsung is almost ready to start the production of HBM4. Moreover, Nvidia has found that Samsung’s HBM4 is the fastest among the lot. With Samsung's HBM3E and HBM4 being in high demand and its foundry winning contracts to make chips for Apple and Tesla (and soon AMD, Google, and xAI), Samsung may benefit a lot from making HBM and chips in the near future.