Storage stock prices fluctuate violently, and giants are betting on the future by expanding production: it’s time to test your patience
SK Hynix has just landed on Nasdaq, and its stock price once soared 18%. But less than a month before its listing, its share price in the Korean market fell by 27%, and the share prices of memory giants such as Micron and Samsung also collectively retreated. The market began to worry at that time, had investment in AI infrastructure reached an inflection point? The reasons all seem reasonable: Meta was revealed to be leasing its computing power to external parties, Samsung's performance did not significantly exceed expectations, and highly leveraged funds were withdrawn from the Korean market. The combination of these news caused the entire storage sector to suddenly enter adjustment.
SK Hynix has just landed on Nasdaq, and its stock price once soared 18%. But less than a month before its listing, its share price in the Korean market fell by 27%, and the share prices of memory giants such as Micron and Samsung also collectively retreated. The market began to worry at that time, had investment in AI infrastructure reached an inflection point? The reasons all seem reasonable: Meta was revealed to be leasing its computing power to external parties, Samsung's performance did not significantly exceed expectations, and highly leveraged funds were withdrawn from the Korean market. The combination of these news caused the entire storage sector to suddenly enter adjustment. But what’s really strange is that while the stock price is falling, money is actively flowing into this industry. SK Hynix went to the United States to raise US$26.5 billion to continue to expand production capacity; Micron is simultaneously expanding production lines in the United States and multiple markets in Asia; domestically, Changxin Technology, Yangtze Memory, Tsinghua Unigroup, and Yingren Technology are promoting IPOs, and Longsys, which has been listed, is still starting to refinance. The world's major storage manufacturers are all raising money and expanding production at the same time. If AI is really going to cool down, why do they dare to invest so much? Because more and more companies believe that this storage cycle may be different from the past. In the past, the biggest demanders for storage were mobile phones and PCs. Once sales in these markets fluctuated, storage manufacturers would soon be cut off. Therefore, the entire industry could never escape the cycle of "out of stock - price increase - production expansion - surplus - price drop". As the Agent is implemented, every time a Token is generated, more calculations and storage will be consumed behind the scenes. Data centers are becoming the largest new demand for storage, and this demand is far from peaking. These storage giants are also pushing to sign five-year long-term agreements with large customers to lock in orders and prices in advance, which has lengthened the cycle of violent fluctuations in the past. At the same time, supply cannot keep up quickly. The construction of advanced storage production capacity usually takes about two years. The factory that SK Hynix raised funds to build this time will probably not be able to achieve mass production until the middle or second half of 2027. Micron is similar. (SK Hynix disclosed the progress of the factory under construction, source: company prospectus) The reporter also found that domestic companies are not raising funds to simply increase production capacity, but to upgrade to higher-value links. For example, Changxin Technology is investing in forward-looking technology research; Longsys has invested funds in AI high-end storage and main control chips. In other words, what everyone is grabbing is not just scale, but also a more profitable market in the AI era. The storage industry is being rewritten by AI - from a "cyclical game" to a "long-term endurance race". Whoever can seize the opportunity to upgrade will be able to gain a firm foothold in the next round of eliminations. (