Micron Technology stated that currently it can only meet 50% to two-thirds of the demands of key customers. Data from KB Securities shows that as of February 2026, the satisfaction rate of main customer demand for memory chips was only approximately 60%, and the supply gap for server DRAM was less than 50%. Since September 2025, the price of DDR5 chips has skyrocketed by nearly 500%, and the shortage has spread from high-end HBM to the entire memory market. Citigroup predicts that the growth rate of DRAM and NAND flash memory demand in 2026 will reach 20.1% and 21.4% respectively, both higher than the supply growth rates of 17.5% and 16.5%. The market generally expects the supply shortage to continue until 2027. 

Driven by the overall price increase, the profit expectations of storage giants have continued to rise. Micron expects its gross margin for this quarter to reach 68%, approaching the profit level of NVIDIA. The chairman of SK Hynix disclosed that the average estimate for operating profit in 2026 by analysts has risen from $50 billion at the end of last year to $70 billion, and some institutions predict it could exceed $100 billion. Bernstein report predicts that the DRAM gross margin in the fourth quarter of 2026 may reach a record high of 77%. 

In response to the surging demand, the three major storage manufacturers have simultaneously initiated the largest-scale capacity expansion in history. Micron announced that it will invest a total of 200 billion US dollars in the United States, of which 50 billion US dollars will be used to expand the headquarters park in Idaho and build two new wafer factories. The first one is expected to start production of DRAM in mid-2027, and the full production is scheduled for the end of 2028; at the same time, a 100 billion US dollar wafer factory park will be launched in Syracuse, New York, and a 96 billion US dollar construction plan for a factory in Hiroshima, Japan was finalized at the end of 2025. 

SK Hynix has advanced the trial operation of its Songnun Phase 1 wafer factory from the originally scheduled May 2027 to February to March 2026. The scale of this factory is equivalent to six times that of Cheongju's M15X wafer factory; the new Cheongju M15X factory with an investment of over 20 trillion won has already undergone trial operation, with an initial monthly production capacity of approximately 10,000 wafers, and will expand to 55,000 to 60,000 wafers by the end of 2026. Samsung Electronics plans to increase the HBM4 1c DRAM production capacity by about 170% in 2026, building a new DRAM production line at Pyeongtaek P4 factory, and is expected to achieve a monthly production capacity of 100,000 to 120,000 wafers in the first quarter of 2027; in the NAND field, Samsung plans to expand the ninth-generation V9 NAND production on the Xi'an X2 production line in the second quarter of 2026, increasing the monthly production capacity by 40,000 to 50,000 wafers, while SK Hynix will achieve a monthly production capacity of approximately 30,000 ninth-generation 321-layer NAND wafers at its Songnun M15 factory during the same period. 

From the perspective of product prices, the latest quoted price of HBM4 is approximately $700, which is 20% to 30% higher than that of HBM3E and has increased by nearly 30% compared to August 2025. SK Hynix holds approximately 60% of the HBM market dominance and supplies power for NVIDIA's AI accelerators. Its production capacity has been fully sold out in 2026, and the DRAM and NAND inventories only remain at a level of about 4 weeks. Samsung Electronics, leveraging its early production advantage of HBM4, is expected to capture approximately 30% of the global HBM market share this year. 

Despite the unprecedented scale of expansion, the newly added production capacity is unable to fill the gap in a short period of time. The vice president of Micron admitted that "I have never seen such a disruptive demand explosion". The increase in 2026 mainly relies on the upgrade of existing technologies, and the supply growth is extremely limited. The effective supply of new wafer factories will not be available until 2028. The chairman of SK Hynix warned that rapid technological changes could "easily turn into a $100 billion loss". The Bernstein report pointed out that even if prices normalize in 2027, the gross margin of DRAM will still remain at a high level of around 62%, and the HBM market is expected to increase the number of bits shipped by 100% in 2026 and by another 35% in 2027. 

*Disclaimer: The content is from the internet. In case of any dispute, please contact customer service.