AI breaks Korea memory's boom-bust cycle: CLSA

South Korea's memory chip industry is moving beyond its traditional boom-and-bust cycle as artificial intelligence demand pushes major customers to lock in long-term supply at high prices, according to CLSA.

Memory has long been highly cyclical: profits rise when supply is tight and fall when capacity catches up.

But the rapid growth of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, and AI servers is changing that pattern, said Sanjeev Rana, head of Korea research at CLSA.

"The fact that major memory customers ...