Samsung and SK Hynix warned on Thursday that the memory chip market is facing a record supply crunch as demand tied to artificial intelligence surges. Samsung said its order fulfilment rate fell to a record low during its first-quarter earnings call, with executives describing customer concern over shortages already driving pre-booking for 2027 capacity. [1]
Samsung also said production-ready capacity for next-generation high bandwidth memory, or HBM4, was fully booked. The company gave the update as AI chipmakers and other customers continued to compete for limited supply. [1]
SK Hynix chief financial officer Kim Woo-hyun said demand was rising across HBM, DRAM and enterprise SSDs while suppliers struggled to lift output. He said the current price upcycle was expected to last longer than past industry cycles. [1]
The comments from two of the world’s biggest memory chip makers point to a tight market that has spread beyond one product line. Samsung and SK Hynix both said the strain is being driven by AI-linked orders, not just traditional PC and smartphone demand. [1]
Samsung’s warning came during its first-quarter earnings call on Thursday, when executives said the company’s order fulfilment rate had fallen to a “record low.” Customers, they said, were already trying to secure memory capacity well ahead of delivery, including for 2027. [1]
Samsung said the shortage has reached advanced AI memory too, with HBM4 production-ready capacity already committed. SK Hynix said it was seeing stronger demand across several memory categories at the same time, making it harder for the industry to add output fast enough. [1]
The companies did not give a date for easing the squeeze, and their latest comments suggest supply will stay tight as they work through booked capacity and rising orders. [1]
