SK Hynix CEO sees worst-ever memory supply shortage in 2027, says demand to outstrip supply beyond 2030

SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung said the global memory industry is heading for its worst-ever supply shortage in 2027, forecasting that demand for memory will continue ‌to ⁠exceed the ⁠company's ability to produce it well into the next decade despite aggressive capacity expansion.

"We forecast that next year will be the worst year in the industry's history from the supply perspective," Kwak told Reuters in an interview on ⁠Friday, the ‌day the South Korean memory chipmaker began trading on the Nasdaq.

"Our customer demand ⁠continues to go up, while our capacity has limitations," he said. "We still forecast that customer demand will remain higher than our supply capacity even beyond 2030. But we are doing our best to solve the problem." Kwak's comments follow a stellar debut ‌for the South Korean chipmaker which has become a pivotal company in the AI supply chain by taking ⁠the lead in the development of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in Nvidia chipsets.


Shares of SK Hynix ADRs were up 14.8% at $170.94 on the Nasdaq on Friday afternoon.