Samsung Electronics projected that the memory shortage will worsen next year compared with this year and continue into 2028. It said it is difficult to significantly increase supply in the short term because it takes more than 3 years and 6 months from building new production facilities to actually producing wafers.
Samsung Electronics said at its second-quarter earnings conference call on the 30th, "Given the demand received from customers now, we expect unmet demand from this year's shortage to be deferred to next year, leading to additional supply pressure," adding, "In particular, we project the shortage will deepen further in 2027 compared with this year and persist in 2028."
Samsung Electronics explained that even if the industry ramps up capital investment, more than 3 years and 6 months are needed from new plant construction to wafer production. Accordingly, it judged that a sharp supply increase through capacity expansion will be difficult to expect before 2028.
On the demand side, it said the spread of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) is driving a surge in token consumption, sharply increasing memory demand not only for AI servers but also for general computing servers to an unprecedented level. Samsung Electronics said, "While memory demand is expanding very rapidly, the industry's supply capability falls far short of customer demand."