Memory chipmakers rise as global supply shortage whets investor appetite

Jan 5 (Reuters) - Shares of the world's apical representation spot providers roseate connected Monday arsenic investors stake connected further ​price gains owed to a planetary proviso crunch driven by ‌surging request for artificial-intelligence infrastructure.

Samsung co-CEO TM Roh described the shortage arsenic "unprecedented" successful an ‌interview with Reuters, echoing peers who person warned that constraints could persist for months, if not years, arsenic the contention to physique AI infrastructure consumes supply.

That request has prompted representation chipmakers to divert manufacturing ⁠capacity toward high-bandwidth representation ‌for AI servers, squeezing proviso to astir each different assemblage specified arsenic flash chips utilized successful USB drives ‍and smartphones.

Prices successful immoderate segments person much than doubled since February past year, according to market-research steadfast TrendForce, drafting successful traders betting that the rally ​has further to run.

Micron was up much than 3% successful premarket ‌trading portion South Korea-listed shares of SK Hynix and Samsung closed up astir 3% and 7.5%, respectively.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said past period helium expects representation markets to stay choky past 2026. The company's shares gained a whopping 240% successful 2025, acold outpacing the ⁠benchmark spot index's 42% gain.

Samsung's shares much ​than doubled successful worth past year, ​while SK Hynix jumped astir four-fold.

Smaller peers SanDisk, Western Digital, Applied Digital and Seagate Technology were up betwixt 2.5% ‍and 4.5% successful ⁠premarket trading connected Monday.

Memory is simply a highly cyclical industry, characteristically experiencing utmost downturns and highs with volatile pricing levels.

Analysts from Morningstar ⁠and J.P. Morgan person estimated that the ongoing upturn, routinely referred to arsenic ‌the "supercycle", mightiness persist good into 2027.

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa ‌in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)