Samsung has officially discontinued older LPDDR4 memory production while hinting at "worse" shortages throughout 2027.
Samsung Pulled Out Older Memory Production To Focus On Newer Technologies Required For Agentic AI, But Still Expects Worse Shortages In 2027
We have been hearing about Samsung pulling out from the production of older DRAM technologies such as LPDDR4X and LPDDR4. Now, the company has officially confirmed that both of these standards have been discontinued. At its official webpage, Samsung lists both LPDDR4X and LPDDR4 as "Discontinued".
This move was made as the company wants to pool in more capacity towards the more profitable and more relevant memory technologies such as LPDDR5, LPDDR5X, and HBM, all of which are being gobbed up by AI datacenters. Despite the added capacity, the company is anticipating memory shortages to get worse in 2027.
During its recent earnings call, Samsung highlighted that, based on the orders received for 2027 by AI firms, the supply-to-demand gap for 2027 is set to be worse than that of 2026, highlighting increased stress on the DRAM markets.
"Our supply falls far short of customer demand," Kim Jaejune, a Samsung memory chip business executive, told analysts on its post-earnings call. "Based solely on the demand currently received for 2027, the supply-to-demand gap for 2027 is set to widen even further than in 2026."
Samsung via Reuters
At the same time as Samsung's memory demand swells, the company is witnessing record profits. In Q1 2026, the company reported a profit jump of around 50x versus the previous year. This indicates just how much memory is being consumed by the Agentic AI boom. And it's not just Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are also witnessing record revenue growth, with memory brands seeing a big increase in margins too.
Samsung has planned to aggressively expand its DRAM manufacturing capabilities. The company also recently ended the production of older MLC-based NAND Flash for storage, prompting entry-level firms to take advantage and rack up their profit figures as they fill in the gaps created by the Korean giant.
Meanwhile, Samsung faces growing challenges from the imminent 19-day labor strike, which is expected to expand into a month-long strike if the company fails to address the concerns of its workers. The strike is expected to lead to a 4% disruption in Samsung's DRAM and NAND production, and will take several weeks to return to normal.
News Source: Reuters
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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