Remember when earlier in the year SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won said that the memory shortage could last until 2030? As it turns out, compared to other people in the industry, he may have been a bit optimistic. This is because another opinion, this time coming from ADATA founder, chairman and CEO Simon Chen, claims that it will last for another decade. He even goes on to dismiss discussions of an imminent AI bubble, saying that we should only be having such conversations in 2040 or 2050.
A machine-translated report by Taiwanese outlet the Commercial Times cites Chen as saying that memory prices will also continue to rise in the second half of the year. This echoes a prior forecast by Jefferies Equity Research. Beyond just prices going up, he also says that there’s currently no basis to any discussions of the easing of memory supply, because the expansion of supply has not kept up with demand. This is corroborated by an earlier report by Nikkei Asia, which claimed that by 2027, only 60% of memory demand will be met, despite Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron ramping up plant construction.
Chen also rubbishes claims that the industry at large is over-investing into computing power. With the reports of Meta planning to sell compute power in mind, he says that such developments do not mean that AI demand is lower than expected. Instead, with AI applications expanding to various business models, the demand for computing power will be rising instead. As an extension of this, alongside memory, another resource Chen believes to be scarce in the coming decade is electricity, and especially green electricity.
On one hand, Chen paints an oddly optimistic view, which would probably apply if you’re in the memory selling business. But for the average consumer looking to either upgrade their rig or worried about the price of videogames consoles in the future, it’s certainly a lot less so. In fact, it seems about as grim as can be, and about as dark as Chen paints it to be bright.
(Source: Commercial Times)
