The global semiconductor market is on track to nearly double in 2026, reaching US$1.51 trillion — a 90% year-over-year increase — driven overwhelmingly by an extraordinary surge in memory chip demand, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) Spring 2026 forecast released on June 2.

Koichi Fukuda, technology executive for applied SSD technology at Kioxia, used a Computex 2026 forum session on June 4 to argue that as enterprise AI shifts toward agentic systems, the next major constraint on AI performance will not be compute power but the ability to move data fast enough to feed it.

More than 200 South Korean engineers are conservatively estimated to be working at CXMT, China's leading DRAM maker, according to industry sources. Chinese semiconductor companies are stepping up talent acquisition, moving from broad outreach to targeted recruitment of core semiconductor R&D personnel in South Korea and the US. Observers say the shift could accelerate the narrowing of the semiconductor technology gap between China and South Korea.

The global smartphone market performed better than expected in the first quarter of 2026 after some brands pulled forward orders, but shipments still fell by about 3.1% from a year earlier, ending nine consecutive quarters of growth.

AI demand is fueling a broad semiconductor upswing and pushing the memory industry into what many see as a long-awaited super-cycle. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have both reported strong earnings, prompting the market to reassess the strategic role of memory in AI infrastructure.

South Korean semiconductor IP startup Articron is challenging the traditional AI chip design bottleneck by using a memory-centric architecture, with its self-developed SRAM-CIM compute chip IP "ART" now in testing and aimed at the power- and area-sensitive edge AI device market. The company says it expects to launch a commercial product in about two years.

Although PC market sales have slumped amid rising memory prices, Nvidia's "N1X" RTX Spark superchip is also fueling hopes for AI PC potential. TeamGroup General Manager Gerry Chen said the N1X can be configured with up to 128GB of memory, but there is simply not enough memory available right now, meaning supply shortages will grow even more severe.

SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won met TSMC chairman C.C. Wei in Taiwan on June 3, as SK Hynix and TSMC map out future cooperation in HBM4 base dies, advanced logic processes, and custom AI memory.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won met TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei in Taiwan on June 3, as the two sides exchanged views on the latest trends in next-generation AI technologies and discussed how to shape the future of the AI ecosystem. The meeting underscored closer ties between the two companies, which plan further to strengthen cooperation in next-generation HBM and advanced packaging.

Memory module maker Goldkey said it plans to raise NT$6 billion (US$191.4 million) to NT$10 billion in working capital in 2026 through multiple channels as tight supply and rising contract prices fuel a memory supercycle. The company also plans to accelerate a shift into higher-value segments such as industrial control, AI, and edge computing after posting a 30% gross margin and 27.4% operating margin in the first quarter of 2026.

Kioxia is evaluating the construction of a new NAND flash manufacturing facility at its Kitakami site in Iwate Prefecture, aiming for production to begin after 2029-2030 as the company prepares for sustained growth in AI-driven storage demand.

Micron Technology may supply more HBM4 memory for Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin platform than the market currently expects, as the US memory maker ramps up equipment investment for the new technology, according to sources in South Korea's memory equipment industry.

SK Group is reportedly placing AI and semiconductors at the center of its next round of business restructuring, prompting a fresh internal review of the strategic value of SK Siltron, a major global silicon wafer maker. The planned sale of SK Siltron, once seen as a move to improve SK Group's financial structure, now faces uncertainty as the group reconsiders whether to push ahead with the deal.

The latest funding round for Anthropic produced a headline-grabbing figure: a US$65 billion capital raise that pushed the artificial intelligence (AI) startup's valuation to $965 billion, surpassing OpenAI and making Anthropic the world's most valuable AI startup.

COMPUTEX drew major AI supply chain players to Taiwan, and industry sources said SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won was set for a private meeting with Foxconn chairman Young Liu, alongside his meetings with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The reported talks could signal broader cooperation on AI infrastructure.

The global NAND flash memory market reached a record US$46 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, driven by AI infrastructure demand, higher enterprise SSD shipments, and rising NAND prices, according to Counterpoint Research.

SK Group chairman Tae-won Chey said SK Hynix plans to double its overall production capacity over the next five years, as strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) drives a global memory shortage. He added that the expansion is tied to deeper cooperation with Taiwan's semiconductor and IT supply chains, particularly through a strategic alliance with foundry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

Samsung Electronics has used Computex 2026 to outline a broader AI memory strategy, highlighting HBM5, thermal management, and advanced packaging as it prepares for next-generation AI systems. The company also pointed to deeper alignment across memory, foundry, logic, and packaging.

South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy announced on June 2, 2026, that it would sharply streamline domestic approval procedures for extreme ultraviolet equipment used in semiconductor fabrication, reducing installation lead times from 34 days to 9 days to accelerate advanced production lines. The ministry said the change reclassifies EUV tools from high-pressure gas manufacturing facilities to a new "specific equipment" category after a partial revision to the Enforcement Decree of the High-Pressure Gas Safety Control Act.

SK Hynix is reportedly preparing to mass-produce a new generation of 200-layer-class NAND flash memory based on floating-gate (FG) architecture at its Dalian Phase 2 facility in China, as the company seeks to strengthen its position in the fast-growing enterprise SSD (eSSD) market for AI data centers.

Micron outlined a broad AI memory and storage strategy ahead of Computex 2026, saying surging demand across data centers and intelligent edge devices is reshaping the semiconductor landscape. The company announced solutions spanning high-bandwidth memory, low-power DRAM and PCIe Gen5 SSDs, and said these products address growing requirements for capacity, bandwidth and efficiency as AI workloads expand from training to large-scale inference and agentic systems.

In 2026, a global compute shortage spanning chips, cloud services, servers, and data-center components is sweeping across the industry. The scarcity of compute and broad price hikes are running through the entire AI sector, pushing Nvidia's market value higher, lifting cloud revenue and profits at Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to record levels, and driving the valuations of AI startups OpenAI and Anthropic to nearly US$1 trillion.

Phison Electronics announced a collaboration with Intel to bring aiDAPTIV memory extension technology to Intel AI PC platforms running Intel Core Ultra processors, aiming to enable larger on-device AI workloads and reduce reliance on cloud processing. The partners said the effort, which includes support for the OpenVINO toolkit, will cover ISV software validation, technology demonstrations, and development of optimized workloads for local execution.