Micron Technology stock falls 1.5% following news of a strategic partnership between OpenAI with SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics that could intensify competition in the memory chip market crucial for AI application.

The letter of intent announced today outlines collaboration across Samsung’s semiconductor, data center, shipbuilding, cloud services, and maritime technology divisions to accelerate advancements in global AI data center infrastructure.

This partnership leverages Samsung’s strong position in the memory market, where Samsung and SK Hynix together control nearly 70% of global DRAM production and approximately 80% of the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) market.

HBM technology, which stacks chips vertically to improve efficiency while processing large data volumes, has become essential for advanced AI applications like ChatGPT. The partnership appears to strengthen Samsung’s position as a key supplier for OpenAI’s growing infrastructure needs.

Mizuho TMT specialist Jordan Klein described the potential deal as "pretty large if fully realized" and called the OpenAI-Samsung HBM agreement "smart," noting that AI training and inference require sufficient HBM regardless of how many GPUs or custom ASICs are in operation.

While Micron’s stock declined on the news, Klein suggested the company might secure a similar supply arrangement with OpenAI or another major AI data center provider in the future.