AI will bring an epochal technology revolution, as did the invention of steam power and electricity, according to Transcend Information chairman Chung-Won Shu. He argued that DRAM and NAND flash will face shortages in 2026-2027 and could remain undersupplied in 2028. He said Transcend's multi-level cell (MLC) NAND inventory, bought before certain memory manufacturers stopped production, is enough for about one year. Shu added that the company has recently broken into China's cloud service provider (CSP) supply chains, underscoring a structural change in the memory industry.

A planned 18-day strike at Samsung Electronics is shifting investor attention from labor negotiations to the risk of memory-output disruption, as estimates from Korean media point to significant potential losses across the company's semiconductor operations.

Micron's senior vice president, Jeremy Werner, told The Circuit Podcast that memory has become a strategic bottleneck for data-center inference, warning that insufficient memory can sharply cut GPU utilization while faster, larger memory can theoretically multiply the compute extracted from GPUs. The remarks underscore how storage and memory design could limit AI deployment.

Phison Electronics Corp. reported record revenue and profit for the first quarter of 2026, while Chief Executive Khein-Seng Pua warned that a severe imbalance in the global NAND market would push average selling prices higher and sustain tight supply conditions into the second half of the year. He said the company is accelerating a strategic shift into AI storage infrastructure and edge AI computing as part of its transition, which it calls Phison 3.0.

AI-driven demand and new product cycles are accelerating competition among major memory makers, creating pressure across storage and component supply chains. Production is running near full capacity, margins on some DDR5 products have improved, and next-generation HBM will be a focal point of contention through 2027 and beyond.

Below are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of May 4-10, 2026:

Global memory supply is under severe strain, prompting major cloud service providers to sign multi-year contracts with memory makers and forcing the industry to rethink capacity spending and pricing. The shortage reflects long lead times for new fabs and a strategic shift toward higher-margin memory types.

Samsung Electronics is reportedly moving up construction of the final production line at its Pyeongtaek semiconductor campus, accelerating one of its largest capacity-expansion projects as demand for memory chips tied to artificial intelligence continues to exceed expectations.

Adata said DRAM and NAND flash contract prices will each climb more than 40% in the second quarter of 2026, as supply is kept tight by cloud server giants that have already locked up 2027 output from upstream memory suppliers. The memory module maker said its inventory topped NT$40 billion (approx. US$1.3 billion) as of the end of April, and it sees no risk to demand through the end of 2026.

Major international NAND manufacturers are gradually exiting the mature-process 2D NAND market, triggering panic buying and a sharp spike in prices. Industry sources suggest the supply shortage may be difficult to resolve. While vendors are seeking alternative solutions, product specifications are expected to become increasingly polarized as scarcity persists.

Global technology firms are reportedly offering unprecedented investment proposals to secure memory supply from SK Hynix, including funding new production lines and helping pay for expensive semiconductor equipment — underscoring the growing intensity of the AI-driven memory crunch.

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and Device Solutions (DS) head Jun Young-Hyun, along with Device eXperience (DX) head Roh Tae-moon, issued a joint statement to all employees on the progress of wage negotiations on May 7, marking their first public remarks on the talks. The move comes as Samsung tries to defuse labor tensions ahead of a union strike deadline.

Power-management chip maker Global Mixed-Mode Technology, or GMT, said demand conditions in the first quarter of 2026 were stronger than expected, helped by an improved product mix and resilient PC-related orders, even as memory shortages and rising component costs continue to reshape the broader electronics industry.

Memory module maker Transcend Information posted strong financial results in the first quarter of 2026, with gross margin reaching 76.39%, comparable to levels seen at major international upstream memory manufacturers. Net profit after tax rose to NT$8.12 billion (approx. US$259.04 million), up 149% from the previous quarter and a staggering 2,075% higher than the same period in 2025. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at NT$18.93, surpassing the full-year 2025 EPS of NT$12.98, setting a new record high.

Taiwan power management IC (PMIC) maker Anpec Electronics recently said its 2026 growth momentum will mainly rely on demand in non-PC applications to offset declines in PC-related business, while more meaningful expansion is not expected until 2027. The company also said rising wafer packaging and testing costs will drive a price increase of its products by up to 15% in June-July to preserve gross margins.

Memory module maker Innodisk reported its unaudited March 2026 earnings, with after-tax earnings per share (EPS) reaching NT$28.1 (approx. US$0.89), surpassing its full-year 2025 EPS of NT$21.72 in a single month. April revenue hit NT$6.67 billion, up 17.6% from March and 583.11% year over year, marking a new single-month revenue record.

Micron Technology said it has started shipping its 245TB 6600 ION solid-state drive, which the company described as the industry's highest-capacity commercially available SSD for data center applications. The product is aimed at AI, cloud, enterprise, and hyperscale workloads that require higher storage density and lower power consumption.

The AI boom is beginning to cannibalize the very consumer hardware market that once fueled the PC industry's growth.

Network infrastructure demand in 2026 remains broadly positive as telecom operators in Europe and the US prepare for future AI use cases. Chipmakers say the growth is not just about spec upgrades, but a full-scale overhaul of network infrastructure.

As demand for PCs and edge AI accelerates, the consumer SSD market is entering a transition to the PCIe 5.0 (Gen5) era. For notebooks — long a core OEM segment — power consumption and thermal limits have become the decisive barriers to large-scale adoption of next-generation SSDs.

Autonomous driving and smart cockpit technologies are pushing vehicles to demand far more computing power and data processing. Memory has become a critical component in automotive system performance. But as demand surges, AI applications are reshaping the global memory supply chain — reallocating capacity and creating structural pressures that are tightening supply and driving up prices.

As soaring memory prices fuel "chipflation," Samsung Electronics and Apple are taking sharply different approaches. Samsung's Mobile eXperience (MX) division is trying to protect profitability by optimizing its product mix and expanding across more price points, while Apple is leaning on an ecosystem of 2.5 billion devices and high-margin services to offset rising component costs.

Global cloud service providers have recently raised capital spending to about US$725 billion, accelerating the shift of memory resources toward AI and prompting suppliers and customers to secure long-term agreements, or LTAs, three to five years in advance.