Samsung's high-performance memory semiconductor technology decline, NYT 'AI revival skepticism'
As Samsung lags behind in high-performance memory due to technological decline, skepticism is growing, The New York Times reported five times.
The NYT's unusual 'Samsung resurgence skepticism' was echoed by Asian technology correspondent Chang Che. “When we chose SK Hynix as our high-performance memory chip (HBM) supplier for our fast-growing business line in AI servers, we were already defeated.”
The NYT said Samsung's delay in HBM technology was "a symptom of a broader problem," according to Arete Research, who said that Micron had already surpassed Samsung's technology in DRAM and NAND flash, another type of memory. Analyst Nam Hyung Kim cited a report.
The report, which came out in February, addressed Samsung's problem with focusing on gaining market share: "The problem with Samsung is that they always want to be big," he said. "They spend too much money, but they're no longer a tech leader." said.
Samsung preached the resurgence of memory semiconductors at an event in California last week, detailing its "vision for the AI era."
“Samsung's memory chip business, which accounts for about half of the company's average annual operating profit, is related to it,” said Sanjeev Rana, senior analyst at CLSA, driving optimism. “We are the only major memory company investing in more production despite industry-wide memory price collapse,” he told the NYT.
Samsung's AI-dependent resurgence is based on the fact that compared to traditional servers, the hardware that powers desktops and databases, servers built for AI require 45 times as much memory, called DRAM.
Regarding the 'fall' of non-memory technology, the NYT said, "Samsung thinks it can take market share from Taiwan's leading chip maker TSMC, but recently the trend has taken a different turn." Its global foundry business accounts for about 60% of total sales, while Samsung accounts for only 13%, a gap widening as some Samsung customers, including Nvidia, move their operations to TSMC after 2021.”
Regarding Samsung executives, the NYT said, “In May, in a conversation with university students, Semiconductor President Kye Hyun-hyun admitted that he was up to two years behind TSMC.” ’ and said, ‘We can surpass TSMC.
The stock investment frenzy for the introduction of ChatGPT has focused on stocks of companies that produce microchips, the brains of artificial intelligence, and Silicon Valley's Nvidia, the top seller of artificial intelligence-enabled chips, has nearly doubled its stock this year.
CLSA, an investment company in Hong Kong, said that foreign investors bought 80 billion dollars (12 trillion won) worth of shares of Samsung Electronics this year, the largest foreign purchase since 2000, when the stock soared after the financial crisis.
In the first half of the year (January-June) in Korea, foreigners' net purchases of the KOSPI amounted to 12.3 trillion won (excluding ETFs, ETNs, and ELWs), and Samsung Electronics' net purchases amounted to 12.788 trillion won, or 98%.
In the second place for foreigners to buy Korean stocks, the gap with Samsung Electronics widened by more than 10 trillion won from SK Hynix at 1.53 trillion won.
In the KOSPI market, in the first half of the year, stocks rose 15% due to foreign buying, while Samsung Electronics shares soared 30.6% and SK Hynix 53.6%.
After Samsung announced production cuts in April, the government began a stock market-led economic stimulus, putting the “low point in May” at the forefront.