The Kospi, Kosdaq and won-dollar exchange rate are displayed on the dealing room board at Hana Bank's headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday, as both indexes opened lower. [Yonhap]
The Kospi, Kosdaq and won-dollar exchange rate are displayed on the dealing room board at Hana Bank's headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday, as both indexes opened lower. [Yonhap]

Nomura Securities said memory chip demand will outpace supply at least through 2028, even as concerns mount over slowing revenue growth at AI companies and financing pressures on some data center operators. As long as data center construction continues to expand, the brokerage said, the upward cycle in the memory chip market is unlikely to reverse.

In a global memory chip report published Tuesday, Nomura named Samsung Electronics and SK hynix as stocks to watch and issued buy recommendations on both companies.

Markets have recently grown wary that slowing revenue growth at AI companies and rising financing burdens on some data center operators could dampen capital spending. Advances by China's CXMT in 4F² technology have also heightened concerns about intensifying competition. Nomura, however, said market worries over CXMT's technology transition are overblown. It also cautioned against concluding that AI companies' growth has stalled: combined sales at OpenAI and Anthropic rose roughly 507 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of this year, though a sharp recovery in the fourth quarter would be needed to meet full-year market expectations, Nomura noted.

Nomura also played down the risk that financing difficulties at individual data center operators could trigger a broader halt to AI investment. Even if financial risks rise for specific operators, existing data centers and equipment can be taken over and used by other players — meaning one company's troubles need not translate into a wider pullback in infrastructure spending, it said.

The central pillar of Nomura's bullish case is data center expansion. Global new data center capacity tracked by the brokerage is forecast to grow from 22.3 GW this year to 31.5 GW next year. As more data centers come online, demand for the memory chips inside their servers will grow accordingly, keeping demand ahead of supply and sustaining a price-friendly environment, Nomura said.

Financial strength will also work in chipmakers' favor, the brokerage said. Combined net cash at nine chipmakers — including Samsung Electronics and SK hynix — is projected to grow from $282 billion in the second quarter of this year to roughly $2 trillion by end-2028, suggesting that semiconductor suppliers could end up with considerably stronger balance sheets than data center operators as AI infrastructure investment expands.

Nomura also noted that both Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have taken part in investment rounds for Anthropic. The brokerage set a price target of 670,000 won ($503) for Samsung Electronics and 4.7 million won for SK hynix. Based on Tuesday's prices of around 210,000 won and 1.21 million won respectively, those targets imply upside of roughly 219 percent and 288 percent.

Nomura's optimism does come with caveats. If data center investment plans are repeatedly scaled back, or if even fully funded projects face significant delays, the brokerage said its memory demand outlook would need to be revisited.


kacew@heraldcorp.com