SK hynix internal analysis warns DRAM supply growth will be tight until 2028

SK hynix is expecting DRAM supply issues (and high prices, and probably even higher price than now) through until 2028, lining up with other reports suggesting we'll be in pain for the next 2-3 years when it comes to RAM and SSDs.

In a new post on X by user @BullsLab who shared some screenshots of a purported internal analysis by SK hynix, the South Korean memory leader projects that growth for the commodity DRAM will be constrained until at least 2028... but not for HBM and SOCAMM memory modules.

This is because SK hynix has been busy shifting its focus to fulfill the demand of AI servers, where there are masses of profits to be had, and that the possibility of any decent growth in the production capacity for the consumer market remains low.

The existing supplier inventories are reported to have been drawn down to historically low levels, which is putting even more pressure on allocation. Reports suggest that memory makers including SK hynix have begun using conservative capacity expansion strategies, which will work towards maintaining profitability over flooding the market with new DRAM supply, while server DRAM demand has been growing close to exponentially, and growth is expected to be even sharper in 2026.

Estimates of server shares are set to increase 38% in 2025 to a much bigger 53% by 2030, and thanks to the AI boom, there is an explosion in AI training data center buildouts across cloud service providers (CSPs), and this demand is expected to result in a "DRAM super-cycle". DRAM production slots for 2026 are reportedly sold out already, with traditional PC DRAM production expected to fall short of demand for the next few years through to 2028.