The global semiconductor industry is facing simultaneous pressures from two fronts: rapidly rising AI demand and the risks posed by the Middle East war, which is creating uncertainty across the worldwide chip supply chain.
Recently, Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, a major South Korean memory chip manufacturer, issued a warning that the global memory chip shortage may extend until 2030. This is due to AI-driven demand growing faster than the industry's production capacity. Furthermore, the wafer supply chain—wafers being the basic raw material for semiconductor chip manufacturing—is lagging behind demand by over 20%, and it may take at least another 4 to 5 years to expand production capacity to meet the market.
The main driver behind this crisis is the soaring demand for "high-speed memory for AI," led by Nvidia's new generation of AI chips that require increasing amounts of memory each generation: from the H100 chip (2022) with about 80GB, H200 (2023) with around 140GB, B200 (2024) approximately 192GB, B300 (2025) over 220GB, to Vera Rubin (2026) potentially reaching about 288GB. In other words, a single AI chip uses RAM equivalent to multiple high-end computers combined, causing rapid growth in demand for HBM (High-Bandwidth Memory).
Currently, the global memory market is dominated by three main companies: SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Micron Technology. These companies have shifted their production lines to focus more on HBM for AI accelerators, resulting in tightened production capacity for DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and traditional memory used in general electronics products.
While the chip industry is facing unprecedented demand, tensions in the Middle East are increasing risks to the supply chain. A strategic flashpoint is the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a major global energy transport route. Any closure or attack would immediately spike energy prices, directly impacting numerous chip factories in Asia—such as those in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan—that heavily rely on imported energy, potentially leading to rapidly increased production costs.
Beyond energy, the Middle East is also a key source of critical semiconductor raw materials, such as helium used for cooling in chip production, bromine for chemicals in manufacturing processes, and sulfuric acid for wafer processing. Any disruption in supplies of these materials could directly affect chip factories in Asia.
Analysts believe that if the memory chip shortage prolongs alongside geopolitical risks, the impact could extend to nearly all technology products—from computers, laptops, and smartphones to vehicles that use many chips, as well as data centers and AI infrastructure. Rising memory costs will force device manufacturers to raise selling prices and may slow investment in data centers and AI infrastructure.
Altogether, record-high demand for processors combined with insufficient production capacity may lead the technology industry into a new, prolonged 'chip tightness' period longer than the 2020 crisis, with the world facing chip shortages potentially until the end of this decade.
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