Nvidia, Alphabet, and AMD have locked up 85% of next year's high-bandwidth memory supply, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. Nvidia holds the largest share at 37%, backed by a multiyear supply deal with SK Hynix, while the rest of the AI hardware industry competes for what's left.
Nvidia has secured the largest share of 2027's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supply, taking 37% of global capacity, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. Together with Alphabet and AMD, the three companies have locked up 85% of next year's HBM production in advance, leaving little for the rest of the AI hardware industry.
Nvidia's SK Hynix deal secures future supply
Nvidia signed a $500 billion multiyear partnership with HBM leader SK Hynix in June, securing a significant volume of supply in future years. The company has also locked down CoWoS advanced packaging capacity, the technology that stacks logic chips and HBM together, for its GPUs and CPUs. Separately, Nvidia's procurement commitments have ballooned to $279 billion, predominantly targeting memory-related supplies.
Alphabet and AMD split the rest
Alphabet has secured 36% of 2027's HBM capacity, split between custom chips co-designed with Broadcom and those co-designed with MediaTek. In July, Broadcom signed a long-term HBM supply deal with Samsung worth $200 billion through 2030. AMD, meanwhile, has locked up about 12% of 2027's production after signing a long-term memory deal with Samsung in March.
Why memory has become the chokepoint
HBM is projected to shift from roughly 20% to over 50% of the total bill-of-materials cost in upcoming GPU designs. Building an HBM chip requires upwards of three times the wafer capacity of an ordinary DRAM chip, and constructing new clean rooms generally takes a couple of years. SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron have reportedly already filled their 2027 production capacity, and new capacity additions aren't expected until late 2027 or 2028.
That leaves Nvidia, Alphabet, and AMD holding an edge that extends well beyond chip performance alone.
Sources: The Motley Fool, Crypto Briefing
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
