Samsung Begins HBM4 Shipments as SK Hynix Lags and a 50,000-Worker Strike in Five Days Threatens the AI Chip Supply - Tech Times

Samsung Electronics became the first chipmaker to mass-produce and ship sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) in February 2026, a critical component for next-generation AI accelerators used by... Read original →

Samsung’s HBM4 lead is a tactical win but a strategic vulnerability. Its dependence on cutting-edge 3nm/4nm interposers intensifies CoWoS bottlenecks, directly delaying AMD and Google AI accelerator ramps. The impending 50,000-worker strike—starting May 21—threatens not just HBM4 yield learning but NVIDIA’s entire Blackwell supply pipeline. SK Hynix, by deferring HBM4 for a 2027 HBM4E push, avoids today’s capacity misallocation and gains ground in GDDR7 for edge AI. Crucially, the industry-wide shift from commodity DRAM to HBM has triggered a 47% price surge, forcing cloud providers to throttle datacenter expansion. Over the next 18 months, memory—not logic—will be AI hardware’s weakest link. Technical leadership without supply chain resilience erodes customer trust faster than it builds market share.