On January 14, Korean media ChosunBiz cited Omdia data revealing key industry insights: the world’s three leading DRAM manufacturers—Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron—will maintain total production capacity at approximately 18 million wafers in 2026, representing only about 5% growth compared to 2025. This slow expansion rate is expected to further solidify the current tight supply-demand balance in the DRAM market.

Due to the long construction cycles and high investment costs associated with DRAM fabs, the capacity increase in 2026 will not come from new production lines. Instead, growth will rely on two key factors: optimizing utilization of existing production lines to maximize output, and the full operation of SK Hynix’s Cheongju M15X fab, which will serve as the primary capacity addition for the year. Notably, the three manufacturers are advancing their transition to more advanced 1c/1γ process nodes, a shift that will inevitably temporarily impact near-term production and further limit the pace of capacity release.

Industry analysts generally predict that the next significant wave of DRAM capacity expansion will be delayed until 2027–2028, when new production lines gradually come online and drive substantial industry-wide capacity growth. In the near term, slow capacity growth combined with strong demand from AI servers and data centers is expected to continue supporting favorable market conditions for memory.

ICgoodFind : With DRAM capacity growing slowly in 2026, the tight supply-demand balance is likely to persist, sustaining favorable conditions for related companies across the industry chain.