Recently, there have been many moves in the chip industry. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, two major storage manufacturers, are quietly adjusting their prices, with the price of HBM3E increasing by nearly 20%. This surge has left many downstream manufacturers a bit confused. The underlying logic is quite simple—HBM chips, as a standard for AI training, are still in high demand, and the supply-demand imbalance continues.

On the other hand, NVIDIA has made an interesting decision: it has temporarily lost interest in Intel’s latest 18A process technology and has put testing projects on hold. This somewhat reflects the market’s true attitude toward advanced process technologies.

However, for the domestic market, this presents a good opportunity. Industry insiders point out that key materials like semiconductor-grade blank masks are still firmly controlled by foreign capital, but the domestic market is expected to expand to nearly 10 billion yuan in the next five years. In other words, the potential for domestic substitution is very large. Some companies have already started to act—CX recently completed factory audits of relevant suppliers and is preparing to introduce domestically produced packaging materials, while also gearing up for next year’s capacity expansion. These series of actions indicate that the localization process in certain parts of the chip supply chain is accelerating.