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Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Exclusive-SK Hynix expects AI memory market to grow 30% a year to 2030
By Heekyong Yang and Max A. Cherney SEOUL/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -South Korea's SK Hynix forecasts that the market for a specialized form of memory chip designed for artificial intelligence will grow 30% a year until 2030, a senior executive said in an interview with Reuters. The upbeat projection for global growth in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for use in AI brushes off concern over rising price pressures in a sector that for decades has been treated like commodities such as oil or coal. "AI demand from the end user is pretty much, very firm and strong," said SK Hynix's Choi Joon-yong, the head of HBM business planning at SK Hynix. The billions of dollars in AI capital spending that cloud computing companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet's Google are projecting will likely be revised upwards in the future, which would be "positive" for the HBM market, Choi said. The relationship between AI build-outs and HBM purchases is "very straightforward" and there is a correlation between the two, Choi said. SK Hynix's projections are conservative and include constraints such as available energy, he said. But the memory business is undergoing a significant strategic change during this period as well. HBM - a type of dynamic random access memory or DRAM standard first produced in 2013 - involves stacking chips vertically to save space and reduce power consumption, helping to process the large volumes of data generated by complex AI applications. SK Hynix expects this market for custom HBM to grow to tens of billions of dollars by 2030, Choi said. Due to technological changes in the way SK Hynix and rivals such as Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics build next-generation HBM4, their products include a customer-specific logic die, or "base die", that helps manage the memory. That means it is no longer possible to easily replace a rival's memory product with a nearly identical chip or product. Part of SK Hynix's optimism for future HBM market growth includes the likelihood that customers will want even further customisation than what SK Hynix already does, Choi said. At the moment it is mostly larger customers such as Nvidia that receive individual customisation, while smaller clients get a traditional one-size-fits-all approach. "Each customer has different taste," Choi said, adding that some want specific performance or power characteristics. SK Hynix is currently the main HBM supplier to Nvidia, although Samsung and Micron supply it with smaller volumes. Last week, Samsung cautioned during its earnings conference call that current generation HBM3E supply would likely outpace demand growth in the near term, a shift that could weigh on prices. "We are confident to provide, to make the right competitive product to the customers," Choi said. 100% TARIFFS U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the United States would impose a tariff of about 100% on semiconductor chips imported from countries not producing in America or planning to do so. Choi declined to comment on the tariffs. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office the new tariff rate would apply to "all chips and semiconductors coming into the United States," but would not apply to companies that were already manufacturing in the United States or had made a commitment to do so. Trump's comments were not a formal tariff announcement, and the president offered no further specifics. South Korea's top trade envoy Yeo Han-koo said on Thursday that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix would not be subject to the 100% tariffs on chips if they were implemented. Samsung has invested in two chip fabrication plants in Austin and Taylor, Texas, and SK Hynix has announced plans to build an advanced chip packaging plant and an artificial intelligence research and development facility in Indiana. South Korea's chip exports to the United States were valued at $10.7 billion last year, accounting for 7.5% of its total chip exports. Some HBM chips are exported to Taiwan for packaging, accounting for 18% of South Korea's chip exports in 2024, a 127% increase from the previous year.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘Things are getting tougher': I'm struggling with $145,000 in debt. Should I refinance my 3.5% mortgage?
I'm in my upper 40s and have $300,000 in my 401(k). I also have 23 years on my mortgage — $254,000 with a 3.25% interest rate — and $400,000 in equity. Things are getting tougher each month with expenses, and I find myself in $145,000 debt between low-rate credit cards (15%) and a 8% HELOC. Medicare will test using AI to help decide whether patients get coverage — which could delay or deny care, critics warn 'I'm tired of corporate America': My wife and I have $1.65 million. I'm 61. Can I retire already? 'She lives alone': My mother-in-law, 86, gets $1,300 in Social Security. Is that enough to live on? 'Stagflation is coming to the U.S.,' says this economist. Here's what it means for the dollar, bonds and stocks. Shop Top Mortgage Rates Personalized rates in minutes A quicker path to financial freedom Your Path to Homeownership If you were in my shoes, would you rather refinance at a 6.7% mortgage rate and pay off the credit-card debt and home-equity loan, get a HELOC or downsize your home? Forties Don't miss: 'He claims to be a nihilist': I told my friend to sell his Tesla shares. He did not appreciate my advice. Was I wrong? You have a few poisoned chalices to choose from. Given that you are paying 3.5% on a $254,000 mortgage, I assume your monthly payment is around $1,100 a month. Only two options you outline allow you to keep your current home. An ideal third option would be getting rid of your credit-card debt at all costs by slashing expenses. However, if your goal is to get rid of this $145,000 debt entirely and get back into the black, downsizing might be the lesser of three evils; the other two being refinancing your mortgage or taking out an 8% HELOC to cover that credit-card debt. Downsizing would be humbling, but that's not always a bad thing, especially if you preserve your 401(k). It also allows you to take a long, hard look at your finances and figure out why you got into $145,000 debt, not to punish yourself, but in order to prevent it from happening again. By downsizing, you would be taking on a higher mortgage rate — around 6.7% — but hopefully for a much smaller amount. You would not increase your monthly expenses, allowing yourself to save and invest money and be free of your unsecured debt. Selling your house and releasing that $400,000 in equity, paying off the $145,000 in combined debt, and buying a smaller house for $500,000 at a 30-year rate of 6.7% interest with the remainder of your cash, would leave you with a $1,500 monthly payment. The downsides are obvious: You have the potential emotional gut punch of trading down, you don't have such a valuable asset and you pay more interest over the lifetime of the loan. The upside: Your life becomes more manageable on a month-to-month basis. And refinancing? Brace yourself for a numbers salad. These are blunt back-of-the-napkin calculations, excluding home insurance and other costs, to show you the difference in your monthly payments under each scenario, and give you an idea of how much interest you would pay with each one. a) Refinancing your existing mortgage to add that $145,000 in debt — plus $5,000 in attorney fees, etc. — would give you a $2,600 monthly payment at a 30-year mortgage rate of 6.7%. That does not seem like a viable solution for you. b) Converting your debts to a 20-year HELOC at 8%, would give you a $1,300 monthly payment in addition to your existing mortgage payment. So your monthly payment would, in total, jump to $2,400. Is that lower than what you are paying now? Again, it does not seem viable. Frankly, none of these rough refinancing estimates sound like attractive solutions for you, but they give you an idea of your monthly payments, your interest payments and keeping your current home versus giving it up for a smaller house. Some context on the kind of interest you'd pay with your three options: 1) With the downsizing option, you pay roughly $321,600 in interest over 30 years but could aim to pay off the mortgage early. 2) By refinancing at 6.7%, you pay $526,560 in interest over 30 years. 3) With a $145,000 home-equity line of credit, or HELOC, you would pay $146,360 on your loan in interest over 20 years. Adding the roughly $144,000 interest you're paying on your existing 30-year mortgage at 3.5%, you'd be paying total interest of $290,360. If you refinanced your mortgage debt or took out a HELOC, would either of those options reduce your current monthly debt payments enough to make it worth your while? If not, are you willing to downsize to a smaller home to pay the debt and have lower monthly costs? If you are unsure, cut your expenses and live like a monk to pay your debt. Don't miss: 'It might be another Apple or Microsoft': My wife invested $100K in one stock and it exploded 1,500%. Do we sell? My therapist said he was in-network. He's not. Am I obliged to pay out-of-network rates for all prior sessions? 'I have never been asked for money before': My friend wants to borrow $1,600 to pay her rent. Do I say yes? 'I feel shaken': A man offered $50 to powerwash my patio. He would not take 'no' for an answer. My late husband's employer is forcing me to take 10% 401(k) distributions. Help! Millions of student-loan borrowers have no idea how much they're supposed to pay 'I feel shaken': A man offered to powerwash my patio for $50. He would not take no for an answer. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bessent says new Fed chair should be someone who can examine organization, Nikkei reports
TOKYO (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the new Federal Reserve chair should be someone "who can examine the whole organization" as the Fed's mission has included so many things outside of monetary policy and has put its independence at risk, Japan's Nikkei newspaper reported. "It's someone who has to have the confidence of the markets, the ability to analyze complex economic data," Bessent told the Nikkei in an interview, when asked about the qualities the new Fed chair should possess. "And it's also someone who wants to be, I think, very attuned to forward thinking, as opposed to relying on historical data," Bessent was quoted as saying in the interview, which was conducted in Washington on August 7 and published on Monday. A source has told Reuters that Bessent is leading a search for a successor to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, with an expanded list that includes a longtime economic consultant and a past regional Fed president. Sign in to access your portfolio
