SK hynix bets on HBM4 to maintain market lead in AI memory

SEOUL, January 05 (AJP) - SK hynix vowed on Monday to extend its leadership in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market this year, as investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure accelerates globally.

Citing industry data from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, the South Korean chipmaker said in a press release that the global semiconductor market will grow 26.3 percent from a year earlier to about $975 billion this year.

The memory segment is expected to exceed $440 billion, accounting for 45.1 percent of the total market, SK hynix said.

Bank of America has described 2026 as a semiconductor “supercycle” comparable to the boom of the 1990s, forecasting year-on-year growth of 51 percent in global DRAM revenue and 45 percent in NAND flash. Average selling prices are projected to rise 33 percent for DRAM and 26 percent for NAND, the bank said.

Demand for AI-oriented memory, led by HBM, is expected to grow rapidly from 2025 through 2028. BOA estimates the global HBM market will reach $54.6 billion in 2026, up 58 percent from a year earlier, with some forecasts suggesting the HBM market in 2028 could surpass the size of the overall DRAM market in 2024.

SK hynix said it plans to build on its fifth-generation HBM product, HBM3E, to maintain market leadership as the industry transitions to sixth-generation HBM4 in 2026. The company said HBM3E is increasingly being selected as an “optimal solution” as global technology companies expand custom chip development, citing Nvidia’s Blackwell Ultra AI accelerator series as well as projects by Google and Amazon Web Services.

According to Counterpoint Research, SK hynix ranked first in the HBM market with a 62 percent share of shipments as of the second quarter of 2025 and a 57 percent share by revenue in the third quarter.

Goldman Sachs has said SK hynix is likely to retain a dominant position in HBM3 and HBM3E through at least 2026 and maintain more than a 50 percent share of the overall HBM market.

SK hynix said it secured the world’s first mass-production system for HBM4 in September and is strengthening cooperation with Taiwan's TSMC on advanced packaging technology. The company is also building its Cheongju M15X fabrication plant and establishing a dedicated HBM technology organisation, alongside new global AI research centres and production infrastructure, to meet rising AI memory demand.

UBS has forecast that SK hynix could capture about 70 percent of the HBM4 market used in Nvidia’s next-generation “Rubin” platform in 2026.