Intel has found a new way to regain prominence in the technology world: entering the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) market, largely dominated by South Korean giant SK Hynix. SK Hynix controls approximately 70% of the global HBM market. The remaining market share is divided between Samsung and US-based Micron Technology.
HBM chips play a key role in artificial intelligence (AI) systems and work alongside GPUs that handle complex AI tasks. One of SK Hynix’s biggest customers — probably the biggest — is NVIDIA.
The appeal of this market is quite clear.
According to consulting firm DataM Intelligence, the global AI data center market will grow by 24.5% annually, reaching $78.91 billion by 2032, up from $13.67 billion in 2024. Faced with such massive growth potential, chip designers and manufacturers have entered a race to secure a place in this field. Many Chinese companies are already preparing to enter this market. For Intel, this opportunity is too big to ignore. HBM production is a highly complex process, and currently only three major players dominate the sector. However, the market’s growth potential makes the emergence of new competitors almost inevitable in the coming years — Intel being one of them. As part of this strategic move, Intel has partnered with Japanese investment group SoftBank to create a new company called “Saimemory”. The company’s goal is to design and manufacture next-generation high-performance stacked DRAM memory based on patents developed by leading Japanese research institutions such as Intel and Tokyo University. Intel and SoftBank aim to develop a working prototype and evaluate its technological feasibility by 2027. Mass production and commercialization are planned to begin before the end of the decade. While HBM memory offers high performance, it is expensive, consumes a lot of energy, and is difficult to manufacture. The new stacked DRAM technology promises to be more cost-effective, energy-efficient, and easier to manufacture. If this technology meets expectations, it could create a real alternative to HBM’s dominance in the industry. Intel and SoftBank are not the only companies investing in this area; Samsung and NEO Semiconductor are also working on similar stacked DRAM solutions. By 2030, the memory market is expected to be much more competitive than it is today.
