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All three major memory chipmakers crossed $1 trillion in market cap within weeks as AI demand, sold-out HBM4 capacity, and a landmark UBS upgrade triggered a historic valuation surge.

Nearly 45,000 Samsung workers plan an 18-day walkout from May 21 after talks collapsed over the 50% bonus cap and a 15% operating-profit share, putting HBM4 supply at risk.

South Korean memory giant reported 37.6 trillion won in operating profit on 52.6 trillion won in revenue, a 405% year-over-year jump and the highest operating margin in its history at 72%, as HBM and high-density server DRAM rode an AI-driven demand wave.

The two companies held a formal kick-off event in Milpitas, California, advancing HBF as a new memory tier that promises 8-16x higher capacity than HBM at comparable cost, with first samples expected in the second half of 2026 and inference devices arriving in early 2027.

Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have all confirmed high-volume HBM4 production for NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform at GTC 2026, with 12-layer stacks delivering 2.8 TB/s bandwidth and 16-layer samples already shipping to customers.

Samsung begins commercial HBM4 shipments with 3 TB/s bandwidth per stack, gaining a timing edge over SK Hynix as memory becomes the critical bottleneck in AI infrastructure.