Micron Plunges Again... Monday's Crash is Frightening. 'Are AI Semiconductor Stocks Really at Their Peak?' We'll Explain Clearly. | Hyundai Motor Securities Noh Geun-chang, Head of Research Center

Summary

Hyundai Motor Securities' Head of Research Noh Geun-chang discusses the recent plunge in AI semiconductor stocks and addresses peak concerns. He argues that fears around hyperscaler capex sustainability are overblown because cloud providers will soon reprice contracts with LLM firms at much higher rates, improving free cash flow. He highlights Korean memory stocks SK hynix and Samsung Electronics as deeply undervalued on a price-to-book basis, with strong book value growth and green memory leadership providing a compelling long opportunity. He also downplays the 'circular finance' narrative and sees data center demand continuing strongly beyond 2030.

• Hyperscaler cash flow concerns to fade as cloud-LLM contracts are renewed at market prices, starting from year-end.
• SK hynix and Samsung Electronics trade near book value while TSMC trades at 10x P/B, making Korean memory a strong value play.
• US data center pipeline remains massive with over 30 AI-focused projects and mega-clusters of 1M+ GPUs being planned.
• The 'circular finance' issue (Nvidia investing in OpenAI) is seen as a sign of conviction, not a systemic risk.
• Smartphone demand impact on memory is declining as data center share of memory rises above 60%.
• Korean memory companies lead in green memory technology, aligning with AI data center efficiency needs.