Galaxy Securities: AI Computing Demand Surge Drives Long-Term Storage Price Increases, HBM Wafer Share to Continue Rising
While everyone is focused on the parameter scales of large models, the real battlefield has quietly shifted to the stacked silicon chips behind the semiconductors. NVIDIA's upcoming Rubin Ultra platform pushes the HBM capacity of a single GPU to 384GB. This figure itself isn't shocking—the industry has long grown accustomed to exponential growth. But what's truly intriguing is that this path of "brute-forcing computational power with memory" is dragging the entire semiconductor supply chain into
Analysis
While everyone is focused on the parameter scales of large models, the real battlefield has quietly shifted to the stacked silicon chips behind the semiconductors. NVIDIA's upcoming Rubin Ultra platform pushes the HBM capacity of a single GPU to 384GB. This figure itself isn't shocking—the industry has long grown accustomed to exponential growth. But what's truly intriguing is that this path of "brute-forcing computational power with memory" is dragging the entire semiconductor supply chain into a new arms race.
Look at TrendForce's data: HBM's share of wafer starts will surge from 18% to 30% within two years. This isn't just technological evolution; it's clearly a high-stakes gamble across the supply chain. As TSMC's advanced packaging capacity becomes scarce and Samsung and SK Hynix frantically expand HBM production lines, we must ask: How long can this model of unlimited investment in AI infrastructure possibly last? More ironically, while edge AI keeps championing the slogan of "running models on devices," it turns out the memory architectures of smartphones and PCs are nowhere near keeping up with the brute growth of cloud computing power. So 3D stacked DRAM becomes the savior—but isn't this exactly the path traditional memory vendors should have taken long ago?
Industry analysts revel in HBM's bit supply share rising from 8% to 13%, yet selectively ignore one fact: this growth is almost entirely driven by North American and Korean players. China's role in this wave is likely still relegated to supporting the mid-to-low-end market with mature process nodes. While Yangtze Memory Technologies is still struggling to ramp up NAND flash production, international giants are already redefining the value of "memory" with HBM—transforming it from a cost item into a core premium component.
Perhaps the most absurd aspect is the disconnect in the technological narrative. On one hand, Wall Street hypes the "unlimited demand for AI computing power"; on the other, everyday consumers still experience lag just from closing a few background apps on their phones. A GPU with 384GB of memory sounds impressive, but how many applications truly requiring it have already been born? When training a hundred-billion-parameter model consumes tens of millions of kilowatt-hours of electricity, shouldn't we re-examine the sustainability of this path? Memory vendors are dancing to NVIDIA's tune, forgetting to account for another dimension of the ledger: energy, materials, and geopolitical costs.
3D stacking technology is indeed a promising route, but this path shouldn't be paved solely by AI demands. Medical imaging, industrial simulation, scientific computing—these fields that require large memory bandwidths have long been overlooked and should have garnered attention earlier. Unfortunately, capital only sees the AI bubble and remains blind to the real-world pain points. As memory capacity gets voraciously consumed by HBM, the rising prices of traditional DRAM have already begun to erode the consumer electronics market. It's eerily reminiscent of the Bitcoin mining GPU rush years ago, only this time the stakes have been upgraded to a technological competition that could shape national fortunes.
The semiconductor industry has always been cyclical, but this upcycle has been amplified by the AI narrative to the point of near-paranoia. When the tide recedes, will those production lines expanded for HBM become the next disaster of overcapacity? What edge AI truly needs, perhaps, isn't a larger memory pool but smarter memory management architectures and more efficient data movement technologies. Regrettably, amid the euphoria of stock prices and pitch decks, these "boring" foundational optimizations will never be the main act.
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