The US is moving to reinforce critical mineral and semiconductor supply chains with key allies as the West's push to expand rare earth magnet production runs into a worsening shortage of heavy rare earth elements. Officials from eight allied nations will gather at the White House on December 12, 2025, to negotiate new agreements on energy, advanced manufacturing, semiconductor production, AI infrastructure, and logistics, according to Bloomberg. The initiative seeks to limit dependence on China, which controls more than 90% of global rare earth and permanent magnet refining capacity.

The Pan Wen Yuan Foundation announced on December 1 that MXIC chairman Miin Wu has been honored with the 19th Pan Wen Yuan Prize. The award aims to recognize lifetime achievements contributing significantly to Taiwan's technology industry. Under Wu's leadership, MXIC became one of Taiwan's earliest memory manufacturers to promote proprietary branded products and technology, standing out as a rare integrated device manufacturer (IDM) in Taiwan with capabilities spanning IC design, production, packaging, testing, and marketing.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which control about 70% of the global DRAM market, signalled in recent IR meetings with global investment banks that they will not pursue aggressive supply expansion. Their cautious stance comes as DRAM shortages widen from servers to PCs and smartphones.

Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division will continue negotiating mobile DRAM supplies on a quarterly basis with its Mobile eXperience (MX) division, despite ongoing memory shortages and surging prices, according to reports from the Seoul Economic Daily and Nate. This approach aims to enhance DS's profitability but increases cost pressures on the MX division ahead of the Galaxy S26 series launch.

Google's expanding investment in custom AI accelerators is reshaping the high-bandwidth memory market and lifting Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as demand for tensor processing unit-based systems rises in data centers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is fueling a DRAM supercycle, prompting South Korean securities firms to continuously raise their forecasts for Samsung Electronics' operating profit in 2026. Some projections now approach KRW90-100 trillion (approx. US$61.3-68.1 billion).

Samsung Electronics is undertaking one of its most significant internal restructurings in years as the company pushes to strengthen its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and regain momentum in the fast-growing HBM memory market. The overhaul includes converting its flagship research arm, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, into a lab-based system and consolidating memory development teams under a new organization led by senior engineering executives.

Micron Technology is reportedly planning to invest JPY1.5 trillion(US$9.6 billion) to establish a new high-bandwidth memory (HBM) manufacturing facility at its Hiroshima campus, according to Nikkei. The initiative aims to increase production of advanced chips designed for artificial intelligence (AI) systems and to lessen the company's dependence on Taiwan amid growing concerns over global supply chain vulnerabilities.

China's memory manufacturer CXMT, backed by government support, shifted to high-end technology development from 2025 and has introduced multiple next-generation DRAM products within a year, with performance approaching Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

At the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2026 in February, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are set to unveil significant advances in high-performance memory. Samsung plans to showcase a redesigned 6th-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) delivering 3.3TB/s of bandwidth, while SK Hynix will introduce its latest high-speed LPDDR6 and GDDR7 products.

Global memory supply has tightened so abruptly that December contract prices for major DRAM and NAND products have surged as much as 80 to 100 percent, according to Team Group General Manager Gerry Chen. He said the market is only entering the early phase of a multiyear shortage and that the real crunch will emerge in the first half of 2026 once distributors finish clearing inventory.

Media reports show that Google's Ironwood TPU is equipped with HBM3E from Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. According to the Korea Economic Daily, Samsung supplied over 60% of the total HBM delivered to Google via Broadcom in 2025. This was possible by a redesign of the DRAM used in HBM, which boosted HBM3E performance.

These are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories in the week of November 24 to November 30, 2025.

Samsung Electronics is reportedly nearing the final stage of qualification tests for its HBM4 memory chips with Nvidia, with a December decision that could mark one of the company's most significant comebacks in the high-end memory market in recent years, according to South Korean outlet Newdaily. At the same time, reports from ZDNet Korea and The Korea Herald say Samsung has overhauled its memory development organization to stabilize HBM production and challenge SK Hynix's lead.

China's leading DRAM maker CXMT has unveiled new DDR5 and LPDDR5X chips with performance now viewed as comparable to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The launch has unsettled South Korea's memory sector, especially since CXMT reached this level in under a year after pivoting from low-cost DRAM to premium development in early 2025.

Samsung Electronics is reportedly nearing a deal with Nvidia on 2026 HBM4 pricing, aiming to match SK Hynix's rates as the company accelerates capacity expansion and reorganizes its DRAM development teams to regain momentum in the premium AI memory market.

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) workloads is forcing a fundamental redesign of data center infrastructure, driving historic memory shortages and opening a rare market window for alternative memory technologies, according to Chuck Sobey, founder of ChannelScience and general chair of the Chiplet Summit.

A global surge in memory prices is disrupting the electronics supply chain, creating what manufacturers describe as 2025's toughest pricing season. DRAM and NAND costs are rising at record speed, pressuring margins across smartphones, PCs, home NAS devices, and industrial touch terminals.

To enhance artificial intelligence (AI) performance, Meta and Nvidia are advancing plans to embed GPU compute cores directly into the base die of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). This innovation blurs the lines between memory and system semiconductors, presenting new opportunities and challenges for South Korea's semiconductor industry.

Explosive AI demand is accelerating a historic global memory chip shortage, with major cloud service providers (CSPs) securing multi-year long-term agreements (LTAs) to guarantee supply through 2027 and 2028. Industry sources reveal that nearly all memory production capacity for 2026 has been pre-booked, confirming an unrelenting shortage throughout the year.

Amid surging demand from artificial intelligence (AI) servers and high-end personal computers, prices of DRAM and LPDDR5 memory have soared, placing heavy cost pressures on budget smartphone makers worldwide. South Korean industry insiders warn that the "low-price strategy" that once fueled rapid expansion in the smartphone market may be losing its effectiveness.

SK Hynix is reportedly set to unveil the fastest graphics double data rate 7 (GDDR7) memory with a data rate of 48 gigabits per second (Gbps), aiming to boost its competitiveness in the high-performance graphics and artificial intelligence (AI) memory sectors. The move is seen as a strategic effort to outpace Samsung Electronics in speed performance.

Google's push to expand its in-house Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) platform is drawing fresh attention across the semiconductor sector, and analysts say Samsung Electronics could emerge as one of the biggest beneficiaries. If Google succeeds in building a broader AI ecosystem anchored by TPUs, Samsung stands to gain in both memory shipments and contract chipmaking.

Power management IC (PMIC) supplier Anpec Electronics held its investor conference on November 24, 2025, stating that multiple product lines for 2026 have already passed the design-in stage and are about to enter mass production. Although the 2025 comparison base is already relatively high, the company still hopes to achieve double-digit growth in 2026.