On February 2, analysts Ricky Seo and Han Kil Chang at HSBC issued a report indicating that propelled by artificial intelligence, the demand for NAND has witnessed a substantial uptick, with Samsung Electronics poised to reap significant benefits from this trend. NAND represents a category of non - volatile memory chip that can hold onto data even when there's no power supply, in contrast to DRAM, which necessitates electricity to keep data intact.

The analysts highlighted that as the emphasis in artificial intelligence shifts from 'model training' to 'inference applications', new AI server designs call for greater storage capacities (including NAND storage) to minimize response times for large language models and agent - based AI services. Consequently, HSBC has revised its operating profit projections for Samsung, raising them by 18% and 27% for 2026 and 2027, respectively. The report also noted that as of the third quarter of 2025, Samsung commands a 35% share of the NAND market, taking the top spot globally.