The summer of 2026 is witnessing a market in the memory chip industry that the industry calls a "super cycle." In Shenzhen Huqiangbei, some storage device spot prices have increased by over 300% since the surge began in September last year; TrendForce data shows that in the second quarter of 2026, general DRAM contract prices increased by 58%-63% month-on-month, and NAND Flash contract prices increased by 70%-75%. When the price of an ordinary storage grain triples within a year, this wave triggered by AI demand is no longer a simple cyclical fluctuation, but is reshaping the global semiconductor industry landscape and investment logic.
AI Computing Power "Siphon Effect": Where Does the Supply-Demand Gap Come From
The core driving force of this round of price increases is the explosive demand for artificial intelligence computing power infrastructure construction. TrendForce data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, global DRAM contract prices increased by 90%-95% month-on-month, and NAND contract prices also increased by nearly 60%. The weight of memory chips in mobile phone整机 costs has jumped from 10%-15% in 2024 to 20%-30% in 2026. Yu Chengdong, executive director and chairman of Terminal BG of Huawei, publicly judged at the press conference on August 5: "All phones may need to be massively priced up in the future, otherwise they will be sold at a loss at the original price." Lei Jun, founder of Xiaomi, also admitted that the surge in AI demand has led to soaring memory storage prices, which has a significant impact on the mobile phone business.
The contraction on the supply side is equally critical. Since 2025, the three major storage oligopolies—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—to fully tilt capacity to high-margin HBM and DDR5 product lines, have successively announced discontinuation of old process products like DDR4, leading to a supply gap for general-purpose memory. At the same time, high-end AI storage chips are locked by cloud vendors and computing giants with long-term orders as soon as they leave the production line—for example, Micron's 16 strategic customer agreements directly locked 20% of DRAM output and one-third of NAND capacity for the next five years. The surge in demand, concentration of supply, and channel hoard mentality have jointly pushed this rare price hike wave. At the just-concluded Flash Memory Summit FMS 2026, Samsung, SK Hynix and other giants successively released new-generation technologies such as BV-NAND and high bandwidth flash memory, further confirming the intensity of the AI memory arms race.
The "Highlight Moment" of Domestic Storage: From Substitutable to Trustworthy
Different from previous cycles, the biggest change in this super cycle is that Chinese storage enterprises have truly entered the core competition camp globally. Taking CXMT as an example, the world's fourth-largest DRAM manufacturer was officially listed on the STAR Market on July 27. As of August 2, its market value reached 361 billion yuan, becoming the first listed company in A-share market value. Its fundraising will be invested in three major projects: technology upgrading of mass production lines, DRAM technology upgrading, and forward-looking technology R&D, and the leading traction effect is spreading to upstream equipment, materials, EDA and other links.
Other players in the industry chain have also seen performance explosions. BW Storage expects first-half 2026 revenue of 15-16 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 283%-309%, with net profit of 7-7.5 billion yuan; Rise Technology expects first-half net profit of 1.9-2.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 63.9%-81.2%. In the capital market, Dapu Microelectronics was listed on the ChiNext in April, Shichuangyi's IPO was approved in June, and Hongxinyu submitted a second listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in July—the capitalization process of the storage industry chain has significantly accelerated, with many companies competing for the capital market, reflecting the depth and breadth of industry prosperity.
Why Heavy Investment in Hard Technology: Three Certainty Logics
First: Industry Cycle Dividends, Supply-Demand Gap Difficult to Fill in the Short Term
TrendForce analysts expect that the global memory market in 2026 will maintain structural shortages, and the supply-demand tight situation of DRAM will continue in 2027, with price trends remaining strong. Although NAND may face correction pressure in the second half of 2027 due to concentrated new capacity release and weak terminal consumer demand, overall, the demand curve driven by AI has not yet flattened. Overseas institutions also generally believe that this upward cycle is still in its early stage—the storage demand of AI servers is significantly higher than traditional servers, and the HBM capacity per system is still doubling, and this structural gap provides at least two to three years of profit window for industry chain enterprises.
Second: Domestic Substitution in Depth, From Capacity Catching Up to Technology Parallel Running
In this cycle, domestic storage manufacturers have completed the role leap from "substitutable" to "trustworthy," and the competition logic has changed from price-for-market to value-for-trust. Domestic manufacturers are accelerating the import of core downstream supply chains with advantages in cost and delivery stability, serving not only domestic terminals but also global customers. In wafer manufacturing, main control self-development, advanced packaging, module manufacturing and other links, the domestic industry chain has achieved vertical integration, with the ecosystem becoming increasingly complete, providing a solid industrial foundation for the long-term value of hard technology investment.
Third: Capital and Industry Resonance, Leading Effect Amplifies Certainty
CXMT Technology ranking first in A-share market value marks that the capital market's pricing of hard technology assets has entered a new stage. The huge fundraising of leading companies will in turn support high R&D, driving the coordinated development of upstream equipment, materials, packaging and testing links, forming an industry consortium with technological progress and risk sharing. For investors, heavy investment in hard technology is essentially heavy investment in core assets of China's manufacturing upgrade, occupying the high ground of industry chain value in the AI era.
Risks and Rationality: The Super Cycle Will Not Last Forever
Of course, every cycle has an end. Huqiangbei distributors feedback that some product prices have slightly回调 from this year's high points; TrendForce's latest report also shows that the upward momentum of DRAM spot prices has weakened since late July, and although 512GB TLC Wafer spot prices increased by 4.55% in a single week, there is no strong buying support. The possibility of NAND supply tending to ease in 2027 reminds investors to maintain sensitivity to turning points while enjoying cycle dividends.
From a more macro perspective, heavy investment in hard technology should not be simplified to chasing price increase concepts. True certainty comes from technical barriers, industry synergy, and demand structure upgrading. As AI moves from the cloud to the terminal and from training to inference, storage, as the "blood" of data flow, will only become more strategically important. This super cycle may be the watershed for Chinese hard technology from following to leading.
