SK Group chairman claims ongoing memory shortage could last up to four years

The memory market might be entering a “long winter” for consumers, as SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won delivered a sobering prevision at Nvidia's GTC 2026. The narrative that high prices are a temporary blip might not be as short-lived as some imagined, as Chey says the current supply-demand gap won't likely close until the turn of the decade. 

According to Korea Times (via TechPowerUP), the chairman said the physics of semiconductor manufacturing is the primary bottleneck. Securing additional wafers and building out cleanroom capacity is a four-to-five-year process, meaning the investments being made today won't bear fruit for the average PC builder until 2030.

While SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron are all investing in expanding production capacity, the focus has shifted almost entirely to HBM to meet the demand of AI accelerators. Because HBM offers significantly higher margins, the “Big Three” are prioritising HBM over conventional DRAM, creating a secondary shortage that is hitting the consumer market.

Chey went on to say that the business will work to stabilise pricing, noting that Kwak Noh-jung, CEO of SK Hynix, is likely to announce new initiatives in the near future to stabilise DRAM costs.

KitGuru says: The DRAM shortage is going to have a wide impact, hurting everything from PCs and game consoles to mobile phones. 

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