According to Bloomberg, SK Hynix’s Chey Tae-won has issued a warning to the industry that the global chip shortage will continue for another four or five years. This shortage has in large part been driven by the surging demand for high-bandwidth memory to support AI workloads.
The head of the South Korean conglomerate, which is the parent group of SK Group, told reporters on the sidelines of Nvidia’s GTC developer conference the supply of the wafers, required for chip production, is trailing demand by more than 20 per cent, the news agency wrote.
Chey expects a shortage until 2030 despite the major memory chipmakers, SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron Technology, all boosting capex and ramping up production.
SK Hynix said in October 2025 capex growth in 2026 will far outpace last year’s, when the outlay rose about 30 per cent to KRW29 trillion ($19.4 billion).
TrendForce analyst Joanne Chiao told Mobile World Live recently that expanding a chip semiconductor fab takes at least two years, and often more than three.
Counterpoint Research forecasts DRAM prices to increase by more than 50 per cent sequentially this quarter and NAND flash by more than 90 per cent.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: SK Group
