Investing.com — South Korea’s two largest memory-chip makers are poised to emerge as the biggest winners of the coming AI boom, according to a new report from KB Securities, which argues that Samsung Electronics (SEC) and SK Hynix (SKH) are entering a period of structurally higher demand and pricing power.
Jeff Kim, head of research at KB Securities, said the global AI ecosystem is set for major diversification in 2026 as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other big tech firms ramp up proprietary AI chips.
According to Kim, “the AI chip market share of ASICs [will] climb from 20% in 2025 to 40% in 2026, while the share of Nvidia GPUs falls from 80% to 60%.”
He added that ASIC shipments are expected to grow roughly 50% next year.
The shift is expected to be driven by a surge in inference workloads, which Kim says will push Google’s custom TPU chip shipments up fivefold over three years, from “1.7mn units in 2025 to 2.6mn in 2026 and 8.5mn in 2028.”
That growth, combined with rising adoption of HBM3E and HBM4, means “the average HBM content of AI chips should climb ~50% YoY in 2026,” stated Kim.
With Micron’s HBM output at roughly one-third of its Korean competitors, Kim argues that SEC and SKH are positioned to supply “over 90% of the HBMs used in North American big techs’ ASICs.”
“We expect SEC/SKH to be the main beneficiaries of the AI supercycle,” Kim wrote. He describes the market as “heavily skewed in favor of chipmakers – enough to dictate demand – for at least the next two years.”
KB Securities forecasts a combined 2026 operating profit of KRW178 trillion for SEC and SKH, up 109% year over year.
Kim highlights Google’s recent qualification of Samsung’s HBM4 for its TPU, calling it a “structural shift that turns SEC’s 3y-long HBM discount into a premium.”
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