EL7.AI
GeopoliticsMedium•3 November 2026•
4 min read

Huawei Asks Some Customers to Secure HBM as Unit Price Reaches $4,000

Key Facts

1The price of an HBM3E unit in China rose to about $4,000, compared with a few hundred dollars a year earlier.
2An AI chip package requires six to eight HBM units, with memory costing between $24,000 and $32,000.
3Samsung Electronics and SK hynix together hold more than 80% of the HBM market.
4The U.S. Department of Commerce announced new controls that included HBM on December 2, 2024.

Huawei has told some customers who ordered AI chips that they must secure high-bandwidth memory (HBM) themselves, after being unable to buy it directly from Korean companies, according to a report published by ChosunBiz on November 3, 2026. The instruction puts responsibility for sourcing a key chip component on buyers at a time when Huawei needs the memory to manufacture its AI processors. Turning to customers reflects the difficulty of accessing usual supplies as the market faces a global shortage and limited production in China. The report said Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the suppliers Huawei approaches, do not sell the memory to it directly. The report did not estimate how much memory customers need or the effect of the move on the company's production volume.

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix together hold more than 80% of the HBM market, according to the report, making the inability to buy directly from the two companies an obstacle to securing the component. This comes as HBM production in China remains limited, according to ChosunBiz, offering no broad domestic alternative to the supply shortage. A source in Huawei's supply chain said a large share of the two Korean companies' memory will be installed in the upcoming AI chip Ascend 960DT. This links Huawei's difficulty obtaining memory with the needs of its next generation of chips. The source did not specify a launch date for Ascend 960DT or its planned production volume.

In the Chinese market, a broker said the price of an HBM3E unit had risen to about $4,000, from a few hundred dollars a year earlier. The change means memory has become a high-cost item in securing AI chips, alongside the difficulty of obtaining it. An AI chip package requires six to eight HBM units, according to the report. Based on the price cited by the broker, memory alone costs between $24,000 and $32,000 per package. These figures exclude the cost of the chip or other package components and cover only the memory units at the prices cited by the report.

The report said some brokers smuggle HBM mounted on a board with low-cost server processors. They classify the shipment as a server processor in an effort to avoid export restrictions on the memory. But this route means the memory must be removed from the package after it arrives in China. According to the report, technicians heat the memory to melt the solder and separate it from the board. Excessive heating can warp or crack the memory package, raising its failure rate; this technical risk adds to the cost of buying the memory and the difficulty of securing supplies.

U.S. restrictions on this memory date to a package of controls announced by the U.S. Department of Commerce on December 2, 2024, which included HBM. The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security said the restrictions apply to U.S.-origin memory and some memory produced abroad that is subject to the Foreign Direct Product Rules for advanced computing. In subsequent guidance issued on May 13, 2025, the bureau warned companies of the risks of using Chinese advanced computing chips and included Huawei Ascend 910B, 910C and 910D in an illustrative list of chips it said were presumed to be subject to GP10 restrictions. These measures provide regulatory context for the company's difficulty accessing components, while the ChosunBiz report says Huawei customers have been unable to buy HBM directly from Korean companies.

Huawei had outlined specifications for Ascend 950DT in its chip roadmap, including 144 gigabytes of HiZQ 2.0 memory and memory access bandwidth of up to 4 terabytes per second. The company said in September 2025 that the chip would be available in the fourth quarter of 2026 and that Ascend 960 would follow in the fourth quarter of 2027. In its November 3 report, a supply-chain source spoke of the upcoming Ascend 960DT and its need for a large share of memory from Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, without specifying when it would be available. One smuggler said he intended to sell most of his stake in the company next year, as brokers increasingly use the same routes and the risk of detection rises. The statement puts the continuation of the indirect route at risk of decline, while the report cited no specific alternative for securing the memory.