According to Commercial Times, institutional investors remain optimistic about the memory industry's long-term outlook, supported by expanding AI inference demand and limited new supply of mature memory products, despite slowing gains; fourth-quarter DRAM contract prices in 2026 are expected to rise about 20% quarter-on-quarter. The projected increase marks a slowdown from approximately 80% in the second quarter and 40% in the third, which the report attributes to a higher comparison base, weakening end-market purchasing power, and price ceilings under long-term agreements (LTAs) gradually taking effect. CXMT has announced progress in its next-generation 4F² DRAM architecture, which institutional investors note could theoretically reduce memory cell area by about 33% compared with the mainstream 6F² design, though mass production still faces challenges involving yields, leakage current, and data retention; it remains unclear whether the 4F² design applies to the entire DRAM cell or only specific areas, with full commercialization generally expected after 2028, and MoneyToday notes CXMT's announcement has yet to significantly affect DRAM spot prices, which continue to rise. Per Chosun Biz, companies including Apple and Tesla have raised the possibility of turning to Chinese suppliers such as CXMT and YMTC as memory costs climb, though analysts see limited near-term price pressure given constraints on Chinese suppliers' pricing competitiveness, available volumes, and sales markets. According to Commercial Times, if NVIDIA switches Rubin Ultra from 12-Hi to 8-Hi HBM while keeping the number of stacks per GPU and capacity per DRAM layer unchanged, HBM capacity per GPU would fall by about 33%, while the same DRAM die supply could theoretically support 50% more GPUs; TrendForce notes 8-Hi HBM is expected to cost 10–20% more per Gb than 12-Hi in 2027. Institutional investors note that larger AI models, longer context windows, and growing KV cache requirements are driving demand for greater memory capacity and bandwidth, particularly server DRAM and enterprise SSDs.
- Related manufacturers
- CXMT, NVIDIA
- Part numbers
- Rubin Ultra
- Impact score
- 95 / 100, high impact