In May 2024, South Korea’s semiconductor export prices rose at a record pace, highlighting the strong boost to economic development from the rise of artificial intelligence.
South Korea’s cyclical memory industry is rapidly recovering from a downturn, with the semiconductor export price index in dollar terms up 42.1% year-on-year.
A large portion of South Korea’s chip exports are memory chips, and part of the export surge is due to HBM chips, which are used in conjunction with AI accelerators produced by companies like Nvidia.
May’s cost increase set a historical high, with data traceable back to the 1970s, while April’s cost increase had reached 41.4%.
HBM has become a bottleneck in AI chip production, with SK Hynix’s capacity nearly sold out until 2025, and Samsung facing challenges in gaining approval for Nvidia products.
Memory chips, along with smartphones and displays, are the pillars of South Korea’s tech industry.
Samsung and SK Hynix are also South Korea’s two highest-valued companies.
As global demand for chips used in AI development rises, memory chip exports have been rebounding since the end of last year, providing a boost to economic growth that exceeded expectations in the first quarter.
Chip exports grew 36.6% in the first ten days of May, indicating that double-digit growth for the entire month is likely to continue.
If Samsung can secure orders from companies like Nvidia and AMD, shipments could increase further.
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