SK hynix and Samsung are both sold out of their HBM3 memory until 2025

The AI industry is absolutely booming worldwide, with the likes of NVIDIA sold out of its Hopper H100 AI GPUs for the next 6 to 9 months at the least, and now we're hearing HBM3 memory makers SK hynix and Samsung are sold out of HBM3 memory until 2025.

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The news is coming from ZDnet in Korea, which reports that because of the non-stop need for AI GPUs that use super-fast HBM3 memory, Samsung and SK hynix are celebrating. Why? Because they're the only two companies making HBM3, it's completely sold out to AMD and NVIDIA through the entire of 2024 and into 2025.

HBM3 memory is one of the keys of high-end and next-gen AI GPUs because of the huge transfer speeds, faster bandwidth, increased memory capacities, and lower power consumption. SK hynix is making most of the HBM memory, but it might not be for long because Samsung is trying its best to catch up with its new HBM3e "Shinebolt," recently announced.

The newer HBM3e memory should arrive with NVIDIA's next-gen Blackwell B100 AI GPUs as well as AMD's upcoming Instinct MI400 AI GPU. SK hynix and Samsung have to be quick on their feet in terms of manufacturing, especially with the upcoming HBM3e memory for the future-gen AI GPUs. SK hynix thinks that the HBM interface could be increased by 60-80% over the next 5 years or so, with SK hynix thinking it can keep its market share in that time against Samsung.

• Read more: Samsung next-gen HBM4 for 2025: optimized for high thermal properties
• Read more: Samsung's HBM3e 'Shinebolt' memory: 50% perf boost for NVIDIA Blackwell GPU
• Read more: SK hynix to debut HBM3 memory on NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU

Market research firm Trend Force reported last year that global HBM memory share saw SK hynix with 50% while Samsung had 40%, and Micron is third with 10% or so. In 2024, it's expected to see SK hynix and Samsung sitting at between 47-49% each, meaning Samsung is going to eat into SK hynix's HBM3 memory market share next year.

SK hynix said that next year's HBM3 and HBM3e production capacity has "all been sold out" and that they're still getting customers coming in and wanting supply. SK hynix added that they're expanding their business area with potential customers and vendors and that they're discussing technology collaboration and capacity with their customers for not just 2024 but also into 2025.

After that, we're going to see the world of next-gen HBM4 memory in 2026, which will be the next-gen AI GPUs. After that, Blackwell B100 and Instinct MI400 AI GPUs... and I can't wait to see what those AI GPUs are going to be capable of.