Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) predicts that the current tight supply situation in the global NAND flash market may persist for about three more years. If this prediction holds true, the supply-demand imbalance in the NAND market could extend until around 2029, meaning prices for storage chips used in SSDs, smartphones, and other consumer electronics products may remain elevated for an extended period.
This assessment comes from recent communications between YMTC and investors and market participants. As the build-out of artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to expand, demand for high-capacity enterprise SSDs in data centers is growing rapidly. More NAND flash capacity is being allocated to server and AI-related storage, squeezing the supply available to the traditional consumer electronics market.
The current tightness in the memory market is not limited to the NAND sector. DRAM is also facing severe shortages, and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) used in AI accelerators is consuming an increasing share of wafer production capacity.
YMTC itself is also significantly expanding its NAND production capacity. The company's third fab in Wuhan is expected to begin operations by the end of 2026, with production gradually increasing in 2027. At the same time, YMTC is advancing new capital investments and production line upgrades, aiming to further increase its share of the global NAND market.
Previous reports have indicated that Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) even plans to become the world's largest NAND flash manufacturer by the end of 2027. Samsung currently holds the top position in the global NAND market, followed closely by SK Hynix and its subsidiary Solidigm, while YMTC has already secured a significant share of the global market. If its expansion plans proceed smoothly, its standing in the global market could change significantly within the next year or so.
However, simply increasing production capacity does not mean the global memory market can quickly return to balance. NAND production involves multiple stages, including fab construction, equipment installation, process validation, and yield ramp-up. It often takes several years from the decision to invest to achieving stable, large-scale output.
Meanwhile, the memory industry is undergoing a shift in demand structure. In the past, smartphones, PCs, and standard consumer SSDs were among the largest sources of demand for NAND flash. Now, data centers are becoming an increasingly important growth driver. AI servers not only require large amounts of HBM but also ever-growing high-speed storage capacity to store models, datasets, and data generated during inference.
Especially in large AI clusters, the storage capacity per server and across entire data centers far exceeds that of traditional PCs and smartphones. As AI model sizes continue to grow, demand for high-capacity enterprise SSDs rises accordingly, making the traditional "memory chip oversupply cycle" increasingly difficult to predict.
Of course, YMTC's forecast does not mean that NAND prices will necessarily continue to rise over the next three years. The memory market remains highly cyclical, and changes in demand, the pace of manufacturers' capacity expansions, AI capital expenditure, and performance in the consumer electronics market could all alter the final supply-demand balance. In particular, if investment in AI infrastructure slows down significantly, or if a large amount of new NAND capacity is released concurrently after 2027, the market could once again enter a state of oversupply.
However, based on statements from major memory manufacturers, it appears unlikely that the global memory market will return to the loose conditions seen in previous years, at least around 2027.
