Samsung forecasts chip shortage to extend through 2028, pushing customers toward long-term deals

Samsung Electronics just told the world what data center operators, AI developers, and crypto miners have been dreading: the memory chip crunch isn’t going anywhere. During its Q2 2026 earnings call on July 30, the South Korean giant projected that the global memory chip shortage will actually worsen in 2027 before persisting well into 2028. The numbers behind the squeeze Samsung’s chip division delivered a performance that borders on surreal. Semiconductor profits soared over 250-fold year-over-year in Q2 2026. Overall net profits jumped 14 times compared to the same quarter last year. Executive VP Jaejune Kim spelled it out on the call: the supply shortage expected in 2027 will be worse than what the market experienced in 2026. Not the same. Worse. The demand driver here is straightforward. AI data centers are consuming high-bandwidth memory (HBM) at a rate that manufacturers simply cannot match. The result is a market dynamic where nearly all of Samsung’s customers are now requesting multi-year supply agreements. That’s a significant shift from the traditional procurement model, where buyers would negotiate quarterly or annually. This forecast also builds on earlier warnings Sam...