After SK Hynix and Samsung Secure $700 Billion in Deals, Bernstein Exclaims: Memory Pullback Is a Buying Opportunity

At the AI Summit hosted by the South Korean government in San Francisco, global memory giants and chip designers concentrated on signing long-term cooperation agreements totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. The AI computing power supply chain is shifting from "procurement on demand" to "ultra-long-term capacity locking."

SK Hynix signed a letter of intent worth over $500 billion with NVIDIA, covering memory supply and a 2GW Vera Rubin DSX AI factory project scheduled to go online for SK Telecom in 2027.

Samsung Electronics reached a $200 billion strategic memorandum with Broadcom, locking in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) supply and advanced foundry services below the 2nm node until 2030.

Following the announcement of these agreements, the renowned firm Bernstein reaffirmed its bullish stance on the memory sector, maintaining "Outperform" ratings for Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology. It pointed out that the sector's recent pullback provides a "good entry point."

Two Super Agreements Lock in Long-Term Capacity

The letter of intent between SK Hynix and NVIDIA was the largest single agreement disclosed at the summit.

The Bernstein analyst team, led by Mark Li, noted that this memory partnership covers "long-term technology development and stable supply of next-generation AI memory," aiming to help SK Hynix "expand its growth base."

It is reported that the SK Group also plans to seek an additional $250 billion in global memory supply cooperation over the next five years, further consolidating its core position in the AI memory supply chain.

Samsung's memorandum with Broadcom covers two major areas: memory (including HBM) and foundry services. The foundry portion will focus on 2nm and more advanced process technologies, adopting advanced packaging solutions compared by analysts to TSMC's CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate).

The agreement extends until 2030, providing ultra-long-term demand visibility for Samsung's foundry business.

Bernstein: Memory Is More Important to AI Than Logic Chips

Bernstein explicitly stated in its report that the announced amounts of these agreements primarily target the memory segment, reflecting the urgent need for NVIDIA and Broadcom to "secure memory supply."

Analysts provided a set of reference data: the market consensus expects global annual memory revenue to be approximately $1.3 trillion in both 2027 and 2028. Although Bernstein stated it "cannot precisely quantify the impact of these agreements," the magnitude of these figures relative to industry revenue expectations further corroborates the critical weight of memory chips in AI infrastructure.

Bernstein believes that memory chips are more important to AI than logic semiconductors. Based on this judgment, the firm maintains its "Outperform" ratings for Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.

Regarding TSMC, Bernstein believes the impact of these agreements "should be negligible," as it remains uncertain whether Broadcom will actually produce AI ASICs at Samsung, and TSMC's capacity demand queue remains full.

In the NAND field, long-term competitive pressure from China cannot be ignored. Based on this judgment, Bernstein gives Kioxia an "Underperform" rating.

Agreements Alleviate Supply Anxiety for NVIDIA and Broadcom

For chip designers NVIDIA and Broadcom, downstream AI-related growth guidance is strong, but anxiety over upstream memory capacity supply is equally real.

Bernstein pointed out that the new partnerships help alleviate supply-side concerns for these two companies.

The agreements disclosed at this summit are essentially a form of "risk hedging" at the supply chain level—AI computing power demanders lock in future capacity through ultra-long-term contracts, thereby eliminating supply uncertainty for key materials in their expansion strategies. For investors, this trend means that the revenue visibility of memory giants is undergoing a qualitative improvement.