By Geoffrey Seiler
Publication Date: 2026-10-04 08:15:00
The artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure boom is becoming increasingly about supply bottlenecks. The companies riding these supply constraints and those with access to high-demand components are both positioned to be long-term winners.
One of the biggest bottlenecks in the AI infrastructure market right now is high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and Nvidia’s (NVDA +1.34%) close relationship with memory maker SK Hynix (SKHY +0.84%) provides big upside for both AI stocks.
HBM gets packaged with AI chips, like Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), to reduce latency and optimize performance. Without HBM, GPUs would spend much of their time sitting idle waiting for data to arrive, and power consumption would skyrocket. As such, they are a necessary component that gets stacked alongside a GPU die within the same protective outer package.
Image source: Getty Images.
A scarce resource
Right now, HBM supply is severely constrained for a few reasons. Currently, there are three major memory companies that make HBM: Samsung and Micron, in addition to SK Hynix. These companies only have so much clean-room space, and it takes years to build new ones. In addition, HBM takes upwards of three times the wafer capacity of conventional DRAM (dynamic random access memory), further adding to constraints.
And perhaps most importantly, the big three memory companies are all fighting with chipmakers to get the EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) machines that make the critical…
