High-bandwidth memory (HBM) prices will more than double next year, according to a report from the Seoul Economic Daily, as the supply shortage that has gripped the segment shows no sign of easing.

The projected increase — a rise of more than 100% in HBM contract prices — marks one of the steepest cost escalations recorded across the semiconductor memory market in recent years. It applies to the memory stacks that sit at the center of current AI accelerator designs, where bandwidth rather than raw capacity has become the binding constraint on system performance.

What is driving the price increase?

The Seoul Economic Daily attributes the escalation to a persistent shortage. HBM production capacity remains tightly allocated to a small number of buyers, and the report states that this imbalance between available supply and committed demand will carry through into next year's contract negotiations.

HBM differs from conventional DRAM in ways that constrain how quickly supply can respond to price signals:

• Each HBM package stacks multiple DRAM dies vertically and integrates them with the logic die through advanced interconnects, which consumes wafer capacity that would otherwise serve standard DRAM output.
• Assembly and test steps are more complex than those for conventional modules, which lengthens the lead time needed to bring new volume online.
• Production is concentrated among a limited set of manufacturers, which means allocation decisions by a small number of suppliers shape the entire market.

These structural factors, combined with the shortage described in the report, form the backdrop to the projected price movement.

Why does a doubling matter for buyers?

A price increase of this magnitude moves HBM from a component line item toward a primary cost driver in the bill of materials for AI compute hardware. For system builders and data-center operators, memory procurement costs that more than double translate directly into higher accelerator pricing, tighter margins, or both.

The timing compounds the effect. Buyers negotiating contracts for next year will face the reported increase at a point when demand for AI training and inference hardware continues to absorb nearly all memory the suppliers can produce. In a market already operating near full allocation, price functions as the rationing mechanism — and the Seoul Economic Daily's figures indicate that rationing will get significantly more expensive.

For memory manufacturers, the same dynamics cut the other way. Firms holding HBM capacity stand to capture substantially higher average selling prices next year, with the report's projection implying revenue per wafer well above current levels. The margin benefit accrues to whichever suppliers can qualify their stacks with the accelerator vendors that dominate demand.

What does the shortage mean for the supply outlook?

The report describes the shortage as persisting, which indicates that capacity additions already in progress have not closed the gap between what buyers want and what suppliers can deliver. Expanding HBM output requires more than adding wafer starts; it requires the stacking, testing and qualification pipeline to scale in step, and each of those stages adds months between investment and shippable volume.

That lag matters for next year's contracts specifically. Buyers signing now are effectively locking in prices against a supply base that cannot expand fast enough to relieve the shortage within the contract period. The more-than-doubling reported by the Seoul Economic Daily reflects that forward-looking tightness rather than today's spot conditions alone.

Who feels the impact first?

The immediate effects concentrate wherever HBM consumption is highest:

• Accelerator vendors, whose flagship products depend on HBM supply and whose cost structures absorb the price movement first.
• Data-center operators and cloud providers, who will see the increase pass through into hardware pricing over successive procurement cycles.
• Competing memory buyers, since HBM production draws wafer capacity from the broader DRAM pool, tightening conventional memory supply as well.

The Seoul Economic Daily's report positions HBM as the clearest example of a component where AI demand has outrun the supply base's ability to respond. A contract-price increase exceeding 100% for next year quantifies that gap in the most direct terms available to the market.

Buyers, suppliers and analysts will watch the coming negotiation round for confirmation of the reported figures and for signals on how long the shortage — and the pricing power it grants suppliers — will extend beyond next year.