SK Hynix CEO warned 2027 will be the 'worst year' for memory shortage; crunch to last until 2030, even as HBM demand from AI accelerators spikes.

SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung says that 2027 will be the "worst year" for the ongoing memory shortage, according to comments shared with Reuters. The forecast arrives on the heels of SK Hynix's landmark IPO on the U.S. stock market—the largest-ever offering by a foreign company—which raised $26.5 billion. Although Kwak identifies 2027 as the nadir for RAM shortages, he expects the crunch to persist until 2030.

"We forecast that next year will be the worst year in the industry's history from the supply perspective," Kwak told Reuters. "We still forecast that customer demand will remain higher than our supply capacity even beyond 2030. But we are doing our best to solve the problem."

SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won echoed this timeline in March, and the company has previously signaled 2027 as a critical shortage inflection point, alongside Samsung. The underlying driver is DRAM demand fueled by HBM (high-bandwidth memory) used in AI accelerators, which demand far more sophisticated manufacturing and packaging than consumer DDR5. Because HBM consumes more wafer capacity than DDR5, major memory makers are forced to reallocate supply in an already constrained market.

Such forecasts warrant scrutiny. It is financially advantageous for SK Hynix if shortages persist well beyond 2030; the company has posted record quarter-over-quarter revenue, and rival Micron's stock has climbed 213% this year to around $990 per share.

Yet Kwak's remarks reflect more than stock cheerleading. Over recent months, Micron and SK Hynix have signed long-term supply agreements (LTAs) that commit supply to specific customers over multiple years and establish price floors and ceilings for the duration. While LTAs don't directly set market prices, they lock in demand—a trend accelerating across the DRAM supply chain.

Memory prices are expected to remain elevated for several months ahead, though early signals suggest the market is stabilizing. A TrendForce report this month showed DRAM contract prices rising 15% to 18% quarter-over-quarter for Q3 2026—substantial but far below the pace of prior quarters.

The industry is approaching a new equilibrium, albeit at dramatically inflated price levels. Whether stability holds is uncertain. Although memory makers like SK Hynix have insight into demand trends, markets shift rapidly. This year alone, a pivot toward CPUs in AI spending has lifted Intel to record highs while erasing roughly $1 trillion from Nvidia's market capitalization—something few would have predicted a year ago.