According to a report by Korean media outlet ZDNet, Solidigm, a subsidiary of SK Hynix, is considering constructing its first NAND flash memory production base in the United States. The company is currently in the stage of coordinating detailed plans, including factory site selection and investment timing.

Lim Eui-cheol, Vice President of SK hynix in charge of Solution AT, recently delivered a presentation at the "AI Infra Summit" held in the United States. He stated that as AI workloads become increasingly diverse, the existing GPU-HBM architecture alone is no longer sufficient to meet new demands. SK hynix is preparing new solutions combining software and hardware, such as PIM (Processing-in-Memory), HBF(High Bandwidth Flash), and SALT-KV (Semantic-Aware Lifecycle Tiering for KV Cache), to address the needs of these evolving workloads.

At Huawei Connect 2026, Huawei Rotating Chairman Wang Tao announced that the R&D progress of the Ascend 960 chip has exceeded expectations, with its overall performance doubling and its release schedule moved up.

According to Korean media reports, Samsung plans to break away from its previous model of relying entirely on its in-house foundry division for Base Die production. Instead, it is adopting a “dual-track” strategy that also leverages TSMC’s process technology to manufacture Base Dies.

According to Korean media reports citing industry sources, Samsung has decided to outsource the increased production of DDR5 modules and SSDs for PCs, servers, and laptops entirely to Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) partners, rather than expanding its in-house capacity. This move aims to concentrate limited internal resources on high value-added memory products like HBM.

According to media reports, Intel CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, expects the memory supply shortage to become more severe next year due to growing AI demand. He noted that some memory prices have already climbed five to seven times and many corporations are slow to expand their businesses because they can't secure enough memory. He explained that as demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI surges, pressure is growing on the supply of commodity DRAM as well. In addition, Lip-Bu Tan stressed the importance of advanced packaging technology, emphasizing that CPU, AI accelerators, HBM, and I/O chips should be connected within a single package to shorten data travel distance and improve processing speed and power efficiency. Intel is targeting the AI Semiconductor market with its own advanced packaging technology, EMIB.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash model has recently officially released. It is the smallest model in DeepSeek's new model architecture series and features native multimodal visual understanding capabilities. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is a 552B-parameter MoE model and significantly reduces the size of the KV Cache. Compared with the previous generation model, demand for HBM has been reduced to 1/4, and demand for SSDs has been reduced to 1/8. In Agent usage scenarios, cache hit costs often account for a relatively high proportion, and the compression of the KV Cache substantially lowers the usage cost of Agent-type tasks.

According to Korean media citing industry sources, Apple has recently signed a long-term agreement (LTA) for NAND flash memory. While specific details of the agreement, such as the counterparty, volume, and pricing terms, have not yet been disclosed, market speculation points to Kioxia, Apple's major NAND flash supplier, as the likely partner. Some observers speculate that the contract is a three- to five-year long-term agreement with no price ceiling. However, the contract duration and detailed pricing terms have yet to be officially confirmed.

In Q2 2026, driven by AI demand, the global NAND Flash market continued to face a supply shortfall, allowing manufacturers to maintain strong pricing power. This drove a significant increase in average selling prices (ASP), with price growth notably outpacing shipment volume growth. Under the combined effect of rising prices and volumes, NAND Flash revenue for all manufacturers continued to grow QoQ in Q2. According to CFM Analysis, the global NAND Flash market continued to expand in Q2 2026, growing 73.1% QoQ to reach $76.776 billion.

According to industry sources cited by Korea's ChosunBiz, Sthe share of 1c DRAM at SK hynix expanded from around 10% in the first quarter this year to the 13% range in the second quarter. It is forecast to rise to the 24% range in the third quarter and the 34% range in the fourth quarter. In the first quarter of next year, the 1c share is expected to climb into the 35% range, surpassing 1b (33% range) for the first time to become the main process. Furthermore, unlike Samsung, which plans to adopt 1c DRAM starting from HBM4, SK hynix chose a strategy prioritizing mass-production stability with proven 1b DRAM and advanced MR-MUF packaging technology, and first applied 1c DRAM as the core HBM chip starting with HBM4E.

Looking ahead to Q3, manufacturers and select server customers have already locked in upper price limits under long-term agreements, and the room for further price increases outside of long-term contracts is also shrinking quarter by quarter. As a result, DRAM ASPs are expected to continue rising QoQ in Q3, albeit at a slower pace. Meanwhile, with DRAM bit shipments projected to achieve positive growth in Q3, manufacturers' Q3 DRAM revenues are forecast to reach yet another record high.

Micron is reportedly exploring the idea of developing high-endurance NAND Flash modules that would be positioned closer to the GPU. The company is said to be investigating ways to bring NAND Flash closer to handle workloads that don't require the latency and bandwidth of traditional HBM or regular DRAM modules. This architecture, currently referred to as "near-GPU NAND," would serve as a middle ground between density and durability.

The widening gap between compute and memory bandwidth growth means the "memory wall" is not easing — it may in fact intensify further.

According to media reports, Nvidia has informed some of its major customers that it will raise prices on servers equipped with its artificial intelligence chips, including Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell lines, by more than 15%, citing surging memory chip costs. The exact increase will depend on the chip generation and memory configuration. The price hike is expected to take effect starting early next year.

According to South Korean media reports, South Chungcheong Province announced that the Provincial Urban Planning Committee has completed the necessary deliberations on Samsung Electronics' plan to expand its semiconductor manufacturing facility at the Asan Onyang campus. The expansion project, representing an investment of 6 trillion Korean won, involves constructing a new plant on a 389,825-square-meter site within the Onyang complex to ramp up production of high-performance AI semiconductors such as HBM. The investment is said to be the first of three Mega Projects for South Korea Great Leap Forward. Samsung Electronics plans to begin construction on the new factory next month, though the completion date has not yet been announced.