Melius’ Ben Reitzes on SK Hynix's market debut: 'We're very bullish on memory' - CNBC

In a recent interview, Ben Reitzes, a partner at Melius Capital, expressed strong optimism regarding SK Hynix's market debut. He highlighted that SK Hynix, as one of the leading memory chip manufactur... Read original →

SK Hynix’s bullish market debut reflects a structural shift in the memory ecosystem, driven by AI’s insatiable demand for HBM. Its leadership in 3D stacking and TSV technology is forcing foundries like TSMC to co-optimize logic-memory packaging, while boosting orders for ALD tools from Tokyo Electron. Geopolitically, although U.S. export controls don’t directly target DRAM, SK’s Wuxi fab—critical to its output—faces yield and cost risks if barred from upgrading to 1β-node tools. With Micron racing toward HBM4 and Samsung betting on GDDR7, SK must sustain aggressive capex to preserve its tech lead. Over the next 18 months, AI server bit demand will surge over 50% annually, yet weak consumer electronics recovery will amplify spot DRAM volatility. SK’s ability to lock long-term HBM contracts with NVIDIA and AMD will dictate who captures the lion’s share of memory profits.