SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung warns of worst-ever memory shortage in 2027

Speaking to reporters past Friday, SK Hynix Chief Executive Officer Kwak Noh-jung enactment guardant a stark forecast: 2027 volition bring the astir terrible representation proviso crunch the manufacture has ever seen, and request volition support moving up of what his institution tin nutrient for years aft that.

"We forecast that adjacent twelvemonth volition beryllium the worst twelvemonth successful the industry's past from the proviso perspective," Kwak said. "Our lawsuit request continues to spell up, portion our capableness has limitations. We inactive forecast that lawsuit request volition stay higher than our proviso capableness adjacent beyond 2030."

The interrogation took spot connected the aforesaid time SK Hynix made its Nasdaq debut. In a abstracted interrogation with Bloomberg, Kwak said the declaration behaviour of his customers tells its ain communicative — buyers are locking successful semipermanent agreements precisely due to the fact that they bash not spot alleviation coming soon, a presumption that aligns with SK Hynix's interior projections extending into the adjacent decade.

The AI infrastructure build-out has stoked request for some accepted representation and high-bandwidth memory, oregon HBM, which is utilized alongside AI processors. That contention to unafraid HBM has drained capableness distant from consumer-facing segments of the marketplace — spot buyers successful the automotive, idiosyncratic computer, and mobile telephone industries person each felt the squeeze.

Last month, Nvidia's Jensen Huang predicted that choky supplies of AI representation are not going distant anytime soon, fixed the spot of existent demand, and confirmed that SK Hynix holds the apical spot among Nvidia's representation vendors. Micron's main executive, Sanjay Mehrotra, struck a akin code past period connected a post-earnings call, saying his institution has nary visibility into erstwhile spot output volition yet gully adjacent with what customers need, Bloomberg reported.

On the question of wherever SK Hynix mightiness yet physique a caller wafer fabrication plant, Kwak said a last prime has yet to beryllium made among a tract of candidates that includes the United States, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Adequate land, power, h2o supply, and entree to a skilled workforce astatine tenable outgo are the thresholds immoderate prospective tract indispensable clear.

SK Hynix's Nasdaq debut followed an ADR offering that attracted orders exceeding 7 times the fig of disposable shares, reflecting wide organization demand. The ADR offering netted $26.5 cardinal — a grounds for immoderate overseas institution conducting a first-time merchantability of that benignant of instrumentality successful the United States. SK Hynix banal closed up 13.3% astatine $168.85 connected Friday.

The institution posted grounds operating nett of 47 trillion won ($31 billion) for full-year 2025 — 2 times the net it generated successful 2024 and a melodramatic turnaround from the operating nonaccomplishment it reported conscionable 2 years earlier.