KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 5 — Shares of the world's top memory chip providers rose on Monday as investors bet on further price gains due to a global supply crunch driven by surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
In an interview with Reuters, Samsung co-chief executive officer (CEO) TM Roh described the shortage as "unprecedented", echoing peers who have warned that constraints could persist for months, if not years, as the race to build AI infrastructure drives up demand.
That demand has prompted memory chipmakers to divert manufacturing capacity toward high-bandwidth memory for AI servers, squeezing supply for almost every other sector, such as flash chips used in USB drives and smartphones.
Market-research firm TrendForce has revealed that prices in some segments have more than doubled since February last year, drawing in traders betting that the rally has further to run.
Micron rose about two per cent in early trading on Monday. Shares of SK Hynix and Samsung on the South Korean exchange closed up nearly three per cent and 7.5 per cent, respectively.
Last month, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said he expects memory markets to remain tight past 2026. The company's shares gained a whopping 240 per cent in 2025, far outpacing the benchmark chip index's 42 per cent gain.
Samsung's shares more than doubled in value last year, while SK Hynix jumped nearly fourfold.
Smaller peers Western Digital, Applied Digital and Seagate Technology rose more than three per cent on Monday. SanDisk was up about 1.5 per cent.
Memory is a highly cyclical industry, typically experiencing extreme downturns and highs, with volatile pricing.
Analysts at Morningstar and J.P. Morgan have estimated that the ongoing upturn, often referred to as the "supercycle", could persist well into 2027.
