storage

According to Caixin, the storage chip manufacturer Changxin Technology issued a reminder on the 29th, stating that the company has recently discovered that illegal individuals and unauthorized intermediary organizations are falsely using the names "Changxin Technology," "Changxin Group," and "Changxin Storage" to spread false recruitment information on online platforms.Changxin Technology reminds everyone not to download unknown software, not to click on unfamiliar links, and not to provide personal sensitive information to unofficial personnel; do not participate in activities that require payment or tasks to obtain job opportunities; do not trust false promises spread by unofficial social media accounts, as well as fabricated job locations and salaries.

On October 28, storage chip manufacturer SK Hynix analyzed that software development, customer service, search, and several other fields have seen increased production efficiency and new revenue growth due to AI, driving a continuous increase in AI usage, which in turn expands infrastructure investment. A related virtuous cycle structure has already been established.SK Hynix stated that the main body of AI investment has moved beyond the initial stage of relying on a few companies and is now expanding to ordinary enterprises and national levels. It is expected that the global AI data center infrastructure market will continue to grow steadily in the future. In the short term, the storage market will be led by enterprise-level and consumer-level AI demand, while in the medium to long term, it will be driven by physical AI such as autonomous driving and robotics, with the market continuing to grow.On the supply side, SK Hynix pointed out that the difficulty of advanced process technology is continuously increasing, and the time required to build new production facilities is long. Supply has not kept pace with the growth rate of market demand, and it is expected that the supply-demand imbalance in the storage market will continue until 2030.

The storage chip manufacturer SK Hynix (SKHY.O) announced that its quarterly profit increased more than sevenfold year-on-year and announced an additional shareholder return plan worth 100 trillion won (approximately 75 billion USD) to be implemented in 2026. The company reported that its operating profit for the quarter ending in September reached 83.3 trillion won, exceeding the expected 76.7 trillion won; revenue rose to 104.6 trillion won, surpassing the expected 98.3 trillion won, with both metrics hitting historical highs for a single quarter.Driven by supply constraints, the company's operating profit margin remains at historically high levels. The company stated on Wednesday that it expects the shortage of storage chips to continue until 2030. The company's analysis suggests that the increasing technical difficulty of advanced processes and the long time required to build new semiconductor factories are limiting supply expansion. The company anticipates that in the short term, the application of artificial intelligence by businesses and consumers will drive storage demand, while in the medium to long term, physical artificial intelligence applications such as autonomous driving and robotics will become the driving force for demand growth.

According to Gate data, the U.S. stock market closed on Tuesday (October 27), with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.03%, the S&P 500 index up 0.60%, and the Nasdaq up 1.18%.Neocloud stocks rose across the board, with Nebius (NBIS) up 11.22%, Cipher Digital (CIFR) up 9.99%, Galaxy Digital (GLXY) up 9.57%, Applied Digital (APLD) up 9.42%, CoreWeave (CRWV) up 7.94%, and IREN up 7.90%.Most optical communication concept stocks strengthened, with Credo (CRDO) up 10.77%, Astera Labs (ALAB) up 10.47%, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) up 6.96%, Coherent (COHR) up 6.38%, and Lumentum (LITE) up 5.88%.Storage stocks rose across the board, with Western Digital (WDC) up 6.95%, SanDisk (SNDK) up 3.92%, Seagate Technology (STX) up 3.67%, Micron Technology (MU) up 2.77%, and SK Hynix (SKHY) up 1.92%. Semiconductor stocks also rose, with AMD up 5.45%, Marvell Technology (MRVL) up 4.19%, Broadcom (AVGO) up 4.00%, Intel (INTC) up 3.61%, and both TSMC (TSM) and ASML up 2.94%.

According to Gate data, the "Seven Sisters" sector in the U.S. stock market is generally down before the market opens, with mixed performance in the storage sector.NVIDIA is down 0.53%, Apple is down 0.27%, Microsoft is down 0.59%, Google is up 0.16%, Amazon is down 0.10%, Meta is down 0.36%, and Tesla is down 0.21%.Micron is up 0.55%, SanDisk is up 0.65%, SK Hynix is up 1.67%, Western Digital is down 0.58%, and Seagate Technology is down 0.34%.

The Bitcoin Technology Conference Series bitcoin++ has announced the launch of "Antarctica: Cold Storage Edition," scheduled from January 24 to February 5, 2028, with only 22 spots available. This event combines a technology conference with polar exploration, bringing discussions to a colder place in line with Bitcoin's "cold storage" (the practice of keeping private keys offline). Since its launch in Austin in 2022, bitcoin++ has held about 20 events in cities such as Berlin, Buenos Aires, Taipei, and Seoul, each with a specific theme, with the next event scheduled for November 5 to 6, 2026, in Seoul focusing on privacy.Participants will depart from Ushuaia, Argentina, cross the Drake Passage to the Antarctic Peninsula, and return, with a total duration of 13 days and 12 nights. Possible stops include Neko Harbour, Paradise Bay, Port Lockroy, and Lemaire Channel. Activities include kayaking, camping, hiking, snowshoeing, and Zodiac landings, with specific landing points depending on weather, ice conditions, and the expedition team's decisions. The conference will take a non-conference format, allowing participants to propose their own talks, presentations, and discussions, with Starlink available on board and independent rooms for temporary hackathons and workshops.Reservations are currently open, with ticket prices quoted in US dollars: a four-person cabin costs $14,900, and a double cabin costs $16,700, with the option to pay in five equal installments or pay in full at the time of registration; paying in full with Bitcoin offers a 5% discount. The ticket price includes a cold-weather jacket. The final payment must be completed by October 1, 2027, and medical, evacuation, and repatriation insurance must be purchased separately. Sponsors can print their brands on the expedition jackets, with sponsorship amounts ranging from $5,000 to $25,000, each covering approximately 22 jackets. The itinerary covers the Antarctic Peninsula, not the geographic South Pole.

Korean storage substrate manufacturer TLB has started the development of the AI server low-power memory module specification SOCAMM3 substrate with two large domestic and foreign storage manufacturers. According to industry news on the 22nd, TLB recently began negotiating design directions and manufacturing processes with two existing storage customers, with specifications yet to be determined. The storage manufacturers plan to complete the design with the substrate manufacturers before finalizing the specifications, with actual substrate mass production expected in 2028.SOCAMM will make the low-power DRAM for mobile devices into a detachable AI server module, which will be first used by NVIDIA in its own AI servers. SOCAMM2 has developed into a JEDEC standard. Currently, each NVIDIA Vera CPU is equipped with 8 SOCAMM2 based on LPDDR5X, with a maximum capacity of 1.5TB per CPU and a bandwidth of 1.2TB per second. The SOCAMM2 substrate requires five layers, and the number of layers for SOCAMM3 will increase, raising the difficulty of processes such as micro-hole processing. The applicable systems have not been disclosed, and the mass production timeline in 2028 coincides with NVIDIA's roadmap. NVIDIA announced in March this year at GTC that it will launch the Feynman GPU and the new CPU Rosa in 2028.TLB's SOCAMM2 substrate has already entered mass production earlier this year, with production volume and sales in the second quarter increasing more than three times compared to the previous quarter. The production time and unit price are both about twice that of existing module substrates. The industry expects TLB's SOCAMM substrate sales to be around 70 billion Korean won this year, and about 140 billion Korean won next year. Brokers estimate the company's overall revenue this year to be about 350 billion to 370 billion Korean won, a year-on-year increase of about 40%, and around 450 billion Korean won next year. The company will begin construction of its second factory next month in the An Phu Industrial Park in Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam, aiming for production in the fourth quarter of next year, but SOCAMM substrates will still only be produced at the headquarters in Ansan in the short term.

According to Gate market data, U.S. stocks opened with the Dow Jones up 0.3%, the S&P 500 index up 0.3%, and the Nasdaq up 0.7%. SK Hynix and SanDisk rose by 4%, Micron Technology rose by 3%, SpaceX rose by 8%, and NVIDIA rose by 2%.

According to Gate market data, the storage sector in the U.S. stock market saw a general rise before the market opened, with Micron Technology up 2.4%, SanDisk up 3.64%, SK Hynix up 3.6%, and Western Digital and Seagate Technology both up over 2%.

Market research firms Counterpoint Research and TrendForce stated on the 18th that China's DRAM manufacturer Changxin Storage's monthly wafer production capacity is expected to expand from the current approximately 320,000 wafers to 420,000 wafers by 2027, adding about 100,000 wafers in just over a year, an increase of 31.3%.The industry expects that Changxin Storage's monthly DRAM wafer production capacity will reach 500,000 to 600,000 wafers by the end of 2028. If calculated at the upper limit of 600,000 wafers, this would be an increase of 280,000 wafers compared to the current level, an increase of approximately 87.5%.

The white-haired stock god Serenity stated that the storage chip industry is experiencing unprecedented long-term demand visibility, with large cloud service providers like Google even seeking to sign long-term supply agreements extending to 2035. However, the market is still affected by concerns over the sustainability of AI infrastructure investments and financing risks.Serenity also cited the views of Dell CEO Michael Dell, who indicated that the shortage of storage chip supply may last for about 4 years, as the construction cycle for new fabs is relatively long, and the related capacity is expected to be released by 2029 to 2030. Dell anticipates that the imbalance between supply and demand for storage chips may further worsen by 2027.

Analyst Jukan published a discussion on the storage industry's cycle, believing that computing power and storage will tighten or loosen in sync, and that there will not be a situation where computing power is continuously in short supply while storage alone turns to surplus. He also stated that the logic of shorting storage while going long on hard drives does not hold, as hard drives are tied to the storage cycle; if this cycle declines, hard drives will struggle to remain secure on their own.Jukan noted that the market lacks a clear judgment on trends after 2027. Historically, prices often peak one to two quarters before supply increases, followed by an expansion in shipments and a contraction in profit pools. He believes that this cycle is different from those of personal computers, smartphones, and general-purpose servers, as the products used are not standardized, and the triggering factors are also different. Some investors who still view storage through the lens of past experiences of profits during upswings and losses during downswings dominate pricing, leading to a low valuation of storage. He stated that a sharp collapse similar to previous ones is unlikely to reoccur, but a gradual decline is possible; even if Samsung and SK Hynix's profit margins are halved from current levels, the price-to-earnings ratio may still be in the teens, about half of the valuation of hard drive companies.He also believes that when storage prices decline, other demands will absorb supply at various price levels, with local AI-driven personal AI demand expected to emerge. If the storage prices pushed up by hyperscale cloud providers cannot be controlled, local AI will struggle to spread. Referring to the transition from mainframes to personal computers and from cloud to smartphones, he anticipates that this AI cycle will shift from cutting-edge laboratories to local open-source AI, with the latter absorbing storage demand. He simultaneously stated that storage prices will not remain high for over ten years; prices will eventually decline, but new consumer demands driven by local AI and open-source initiatives may provide bottom support.

Market research firm IDC stated that the smartphone market experienced the most severe decline on record in the September quarter, with shipments dropping by 22%, primarily affected by rising storage costs, and the situation is expected to worsen.Over the past year, rising storage costs, driven mainly by demand from the artificial intelligence industry, have harmed the profitability of the mobile industry, forcing companies to raise prices, cut specifications, and abandon models aimed at the budget market. Among major brands, Xiaomi and Oppo were hit the hardest, while Apple and Samsung performed relatively better due to their larger portfolio of high-end models.

The account pequityresearch stated that Bloomberg's research institution, Bloomberg Intelligence, predicts that the high bandwidth memory market will reach $64.1 billion by 2030, up from the previous forecast of $26 billion.The forecast cited by this account also shows that Bloomberg Intelligence expects the prices of HBM3E and HBM4 to rise by 30% to 45% in 2027, with the average price of high bandwidth memory increasing from $15.46 in 2026 to $34.94 in 2030.

Financial Associated Press reported on October 12, citing market research firm Counterpoint Research, that the ongoing construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to squeeze the supply of storage chips, putting pressure on costs and supply in consumer electronics. Preliminary data shows that global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2026 are expected to decline by 20% year-on-year, reaching the lowest level for the same period since 2012. The storage chip crisis has impacted the smartphone market for the second consecutive quarter, with rising chip costs increasing the overall bill of materials, leading manufacturers to raise retail prices. Since 2026, global smartphone retail prices have cumulatively increased by about 20%.Samsung remains the global leader, with its market share rising to 23% in the third quarter, although shipments declined by 3% year-on-year, marking the largest share increase among major manufacturers. Apple's share rose to 22%, marking its first time surpassing 20% in the third quarter, but shipments declined year-on-year. The absence of the base model iPhone 18 this year resulted in a lower channel distribution scale in the first month of new product launches compared to the previous year's iPhone 17 series. The iPhone 18 Pro series performed better than its predecessor in China and India.Xiaomi's shipments in the third quarter declined by over 30% year-on-year, with its market share dropping to 10%. Both OPPO and vivo saw their shipments decline by over 20% year-on-year, with shares falling to 9% and 8%, respectively. Counterpoint senior analyst Shilpi Jain stated that consumers are holding onto their existing devices for longer and are considering more refurbished devices. Counterpoint indicated that global smartphone shipments are unlikely to see a significant recovery before improvements in storage chip costs and supply.

According to Gate quotes, the Hong Kong stock storage concept has declined, with Southern Double Long SK Hynix (07709.HK) dropping over 17%, and Southern Double Long Samsung Electronics (07747.HK) falling over 14%.

According to Gate market data, the decline in the U.S. stock market's storage and optical communication sectors has narrowed.In the storage sector, Micron Technology (MU) fell by 2.88%, Western Digital (WDC) fell by 2.11%, SanDisk (SNDK) fell by 5.68%, Seagate Technology (STX) fell by 3.62%, and SK Hynix (SKHY) fell by 3.67%.In the optical communication concept stocks, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) fell by 6.47%, Coherent (COHR) fell by 7.14%, Credo (CRDO) fell by 5.69%, Lumentum (LITE) fell by 1.57%, and Nokia (NOK) fell by 2.99%.