AI and compute economics
2026-04-26
10 minute read
12 sources
Korea memory in 2026: Samsung versus SK Hynix, NVIDIA qualification, and the HBM share war
SK Hynix turned a two year qualification lead at NVIDIA into roughly half of the global HBM market and most of its profit pool, while Samsung is rebuilding its memory business around a delayed HBM3E ramp, an HBM4 catch up plan, and a foundry separation that signals how serious Suwon now treats the gap.
High bandwidth memory has become the single most concentrated profit pool in the AI compute stack outside NVIDIA itself. TrendForce sized the HBM market at roughly USD 16 billion in 2024 and projects USD 33 billion in 2025, with SK Hynix holding about 53 percent share, Samsung 38 percent, and Micron 9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024...