"TrendForce reports that suppliers are phasing out DDR4 and prioritizing the more profitable server market, leading to a continued tightening of PC DDR4 supply. Consequently, PC OEMs have been aggressively securing orders since June to ensure inventory, adopting a more open stance in price negotiations. This has led to an upward trend in Q3 contract prices and a clear shift in bargaining power towards suppliers. Uncertainty surrounding US tariff policies is also fueling short-term stocking behavior, further intensifying upward price pressure and rapidly narrowing the price gap between DDR4 and DDR5.
According to TrendForce, NVIDIA's data center revenue grew by 73% year-over-year in FY1Q26, driven by the gradual ramp-up of the new Blackwell GPU platform. After 2Q25, NVIDIA is expected to significantly increase production of the GB200 rack and launch the MGX RTX PRO to meet edge AI demands. The GB300 NVL72 design was reverted to the Bianca architecture for a smoother product launch, causing short-term pressures on the liquid cooling supply chain. In the future, NVIDIA's data center business will continue to expand, focusing on Tier 2 data centers and sovereign cloud projects, which will become key growth areas.
"According to TrendForce’s latest report, in response to new US export restrictions, NVIDIA plans to launch a downgraded version of the RTX PRO 6000 for the Chinese market, featuring GDDR7 DRAM. This product is expected to be released in 2H25, with demand estimated to reach 300,000-400,000 units, accounting for 40% of the total RTX PRO 6000 shipments for the year. Due to the export restrictions, NVIDIA may face intense competition in China from local AI chip suppliers such as Huawei and Cambricon. NVIDIA also plans to enhance integration with domestic AI ASICs through its NVLink Fusion technology to meet the growing market demand. Additionally, the demand for GDDR7 memory is projected to significantly increase, driven by NVIDIA, especially in the PC and workstation graphics card market.
This report tracks the current restrictions on semiconductor technology faced by Chinese companies, analyzes recent developments in China’s semiconductor equipment sector, and ultimately focuses on how Chinese firms are exploring alternative strategies to counter U.S. controls on semiconductor technology.
"TrendForce reports that NVIDIA announced plans at Computex 2025 to expand investments and strengthen AI server supply chain cooperation in Taiwan, including building AI supercomputers, expanding the Blackwell platform supply chain, and establishing a new R&D center. The GB200 rack shipments are expected to increase after 2Q25, with collaboration from Taiwan’s ODM giants like Foxconn, Quanta, and Wistron. NVIDIA introduced NVLink Fusion to address competitive challenges and highlighted future AI trends involving AI agents and AI factories. These initiatives will accelerate AI technology adoption, cultivate local talent, and reinforce Taiwan’s strategic position in the global tech sector.
"TrendForce reports that as memory products evolve, DDR4 modules are nearing end-of-life (EOL), leading to rising prices. Major suppliers like Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix have announced EOL plans for DDR4 with final shipments in early 2026. Some PC OEMs have stockpiled DDR4, driving up average selling prices. Robust demand for enterprise SSDs is supporting memory prices in Q3. DDR4 contract prices have already increased by over 20% in Q2 and may rise another 10% in Q3. Continued demand could keep DDR4 prices up in the second half of the year, but tariff pauses and other factors might mitigate this rise.
"According to TrendForce, the NAND Flash market has maintained equilibrium in early 2025 due to conservative capacity strategies by suppliers. However, sudden US tariffs disrupted this balance, leading some PC OEMs to stockpile, but overall shipment momentum was weak. The retail market's declining demand and uncertain outlook for enterprise and consumer applications have led suppliers to remain cautious on capacity expansion. Entering Q3 2025, the enterprise SSD market is expected to experience a substantial demand increase, driven primarily by North American cloud service providers' investments in AI. The rising demand is not only from Chinese AI deployments but also expanding in North America, supporting the global growth of enterprise SSD and leading to higher NAND Flash prices in 2025.
"As demand for AI servers rises, the adoption of HBM4 memory is set to increase costs, with estimated price premiums exceeding 30%. HBM4 features significant changes, including doubling IO channels to 2048 and using logic chip architecture, leading to higher data transfer rates and reduced latency. However, these advancements also raise manufacturing costs, with wafer costs reaching $7000-8000, making it 3-4 times more expensive than traditional DRAM. In 2026, total HBM shipments are forecasted to exceed 30 billion Gb, with SK hynix expected to maintain over 50% market share. Samsung and Micron need to improve yield rates and production capacity to compete in the HBM4 market.
"TSMC's North America Technology Symposium unveiled a roadmap for advanced packaging solutions, showcasing the 3DFabric® platform, which includes wafer level 3D stacking and advanced packaging technologies. These innovations address bottlenecks in traditional single-chip designs, driven by HPC and AI's rising demand for computing power. Notably, the SoW technology, expected by 2027, aims to boost AI computing power by 40 times. While challenges such as technology maturity, supply chain stability, and high R&D costs exist, TSMC's advanced packaging roadmap and comprehensive strategy underline its commitment to advancing semiconductor technology in the post-Moore's Law era..
"According to the latest supply chain survey from TrendForce, new US export regulations starting in April 2025 will require licenses for exporting semiconductor chips like NVIDIA H20 and AMD MI308 to China. This requirement will significantly impact NVIDIA's ability to sell their H20 and similar chips to China’s AI market, driving the market towards domestic alternatives and a clearer division between the AI server supply chains in China and the US.
In response to these restrictions, Chinese CSPs and OEMs are expected to increasingly rely on domestic suppliers for AI accelerators. Major Chinese CSPs such as Baidu, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent are anticipated to boost their investments in developing in-house AI chips. As a result of the new export controls, the share of externally purchased AI chips (e.g., from NVIDIA and AMD) in China’s AI server market is projected to drop from 63% in 2024 to 41.5% in 2025.
Huawei and Cambricon lead the domestic AI chip sector and are expected to drive the adoption of local chips in 2025. Additionally, Chinese CSPs like Alibaba and Baidu are actively developing their ASICs to replace NVIDIA GPUs. Overall, geopolitical risks are expected to expedite China's autonomy in the AI supply chain.