Micron Shares Slip as Samsung Cuts Prices on AI Memory Chips

Micron Technology (MU, Financials) shares dipped on Tuesday after news broke that Samsung Electronics is cutting pricing on its high-bandwidth memory chips in an effort to get back into the expanding AI hardware industry.

Digitimes, a news site for the tech industry, says that Samsung wants to lower the pricing of HBM chips by about 30%. This shows that the company is taking a more aggressive approach to compete with SK Hynix and Micron, both of whom have seen a big increase in demand for AI-related memory goods this year.

The move scared investors in the whole sector. In trading, SK Hynix's stock fell by around 7%, while Micron's fell by about 2%. For training and executing big language models, HBM chips are an important part of AI systems and high-performance computing because they let data move quickly.

Micron has put a lot of money into expanding its HBM production, making it a vital supplier to large chipmakers who need advanced memory for AI applications. But Samsung's campaign for lower prices could mean that profit margins in the whole sector get tighter, even though demand keeps going up.

Analysts added that this development shows how hard it is for memory producers to keep prices in check while also growing quickly in a market that is becoming more competitive.