Analysis: How long can memory's AI-driven boom last?

The insatiable demand from AI training clusters for high-bandwidth memory is pushing DRAM and NAND to their technical and capacity limits. The soaring complexity of HBM3E/HBM4 packaging has turned TSMC’s CoWoS capacity into a new bottleneck, indirectly inflating GPU BOM costs. While Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix currently enjoy pricing power, U.S. CHIPS Act transparency mandates and aggressive Chinese memory makers scaling 232-layer NAND and 1β DRAM are reshaping compliance cost structures. SK Hynix’s tight Nvidia alignment, Samsung’s GAA-based logic-memory integration, and Micron’s geo-strategic fab investments in the U.S., Japan, and India signal divergent survival strategies. Within 18 months, any slowdown in AI server capex or breakthroughs in CPO (co-packaged optics) that reduce bandwidth dependency could burst the current price bubble, forcing the sector back into a brutal cycle driven by utilization rates and yield efficiency.