Memory makers face competing signals: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC Thursday he does not expect supply to exceed demand by 2029, while investors assess fresh production.
A surplus could push memory prices lower and reduce margins for suppliers including SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron, CNBC reported. Memory shares have fallen over the past week as investors considered weaker demand in coming years, the outlet said. CNBC described memory as a key component in Nvidia’s chips, while Huang said the company would keep using it in large volumes.
CNBC linked some of the share decline to an Oct. 15 opinion column in a South Korean publication. The column urged the government to prepare for a slowdown in the artificial intelligence boom and cited two experts who warned that new supply could flood the market by 2029. They argued that a memory boom could give way to an industry downturn.
Another concern involves ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a Chinese memory company. CNBC reported that CXMT announced a new design architecture that could improve efficiency, adding to investor worries that it may take market share from SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron.
Huang made the remarks during a CNBC interview with Arjun Kharpal alongside Nvidia’s GTC Berlin event. “You can always use more of it,” he said, referring to memory. Huang said HBM would remain in use for years and Nvidia would keep putting LPDDR memory, commonly used in phones, in data centers. He said that deployment had helped Nvidia deliver performance at twice the energy efficiency of alternatives available today.
Asked about a possible partnership with CXMT, Huang told CNBC Nvidia was “open-minded.” He said Nvidia works with Chinese firms across its supply chain and credited U.S. regulations with accelerating China’s semiconductor technology and manufacturing efforts. CNBC reported that U.S. rules restrict exports of advanced semiconductors to China, including Nvidia’s top-end chips.
