Strong Support for Memory Chips from Nomura: AI Demand Has Not Peaked

The global memory chip sector has been under serious pressure recently due to two major rumors that have emerged. The first of these rumors is that Güney Kore-based major memory chip manufacturers and the government have announced massive medium and long-term investment plans. This has raised concerns in the markets that a serious production capacity excess could occur in the future. The second rumor is related to the technology giant Meta's plan to rent out its unused idle computing power to external parties. Some investors interpreted this move as a sign that the demand for artificial intelligence hardware has now peaked and begun to decline. However, these two developments are considered overreactions that ignore the fundamental dynamics of the industry.

Nomura Menkul Kıymetler, Japonya's largest brokerage house, heavily criticized this market perception in its most recently published research report on the matter. The report emphasized that the market's interpretation of these two negative factors has been blatantly exaggerated and met with an overreaction. According to Nomura analysts, these so-called two major threats affecting the market are merely a false assumption that does not reflect reality. On the contrary, this environment of unjustified fear and uncertainty presents a unique window of opportunity for investors to buy memory chip stocks below their true values. The institution states that the negative picture created by emotional selling is an important signal that the sector will soon experience a strong recovery.

It is noted that the massive investment plans announced by Güney Kore, reaching a total value of 4.800 trillion Won, will not pose a risk in the near future. According to Nomura, transforming an investment plan of this scale into physical production capacity and supplying products to the market requires a timeframe of at least 5 to 10 years. Therefore, it does not technically seem possible for these massive investments to disrupt the current and near-future tight supply-demand balance. The current capacity inadequacy and production constraints remain as a structural problem that cannot be easily solved in the medium term. Consequently, it is not a logical approach for long-term strategic plans to exert direct and immediate pressure on today's urgent market.

The rapid and unstoppable growth in the artificial intelligence sector continues to make high-bandwidth memory (HBM) production the most critical priority of the industry. Meta's initiative to rent out its computing power is not an indication that artificial intelligence hardware demand is decreasing; on the contrary, it is a sign that this infrastructure is being attempted to be used much more efficiently and optimally. The training and inference processes of massive artificial intelligence models increasingly require much more complex computational capabilities and an accompanying tremendous amount of data storage capacity every day. These unique technical requirements continuously drive up the demand level not only for advanced artificial intelligence-focused semiconductors but also for memory chips that require special production processes. In summary, it is clearly evident that we continue to experience one of the largest demand waves on the hardware side of the artificial intelligence revolution.

In light of all these analytical data, it is highly likely that companies producing memory chips in global technology markets will be re-evaluated in the near future. Current market conditions and exaggerated fears have lowered the stock prices of these companies to highly attractive levels for investors. The ongoing and structural supply shortage for artificial intelligence-focused chips guarantees that very high profit margins and strong financial balance sheets for this firm will continue in the coming quarters. Positive and rational evaluations from established and influential financial institutions like Nomura can provide significant momentum for market sentiment to return to normal rapidly. It is concluded that investors should evaluate artificial declines in such emotional markets as opportunities and focus on long-term artificial intelligence trends.