Chinese cloud providers reportedly sought long-term memory supply agreements from Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, with some requests reaching as far as 2035. Maeil Business Newspaper reported on October 27, 2026, that the proposals covered server DDR and low-power DDR (LPDDR). The accounts described requests, not completed agreements.
Maeil named Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance. A later report by The Asia Business Daily also named Baidu. A separate Maeil account said the requested supply would be additional to volumes covered by existing agreements.
Which memory did the providers seek?
The reported requests concerned server DDR and LPDDR, not high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the memory category used alongside AI accelerators. Maeil said U.S. export controls prevent Samsung Electronics and SK hynix from exporting HBM to China, while Chinese data-center operators still need general-purpose DRAM.
The reports linked the demand to China’s expanding AI data centers and difficulty obtaining enough high-performance server memory through existing supply channels. Some requests reportedly sought supply through 2035. The same Maeil account described three to five years as a typical term for a long-term agreement, or LTA.
| Supply arrangement | Reported duration |
| Chinese cloud-provider requests | Up to 10 years; some sought supply through 2035 |
| Typical LTA term | 3–5 years |
What the Samsung estimate says about demand
Kim Dong-won, head of research at KB Securities, estimated that Chinese cloud providers account for 7–8% of Samsung Electronics’ total DRAM revenue. The Asia Business Daily reported the estimate on October 29, 2026.
Kim said that if agreements are signed, competition for memory supply could put upward pressure on LTA pricing. That analysis concerns supplier negotiations, not a forecast for retail RAM prices. The requests focus on server memory, and the reports provide no quantified consumer-price effect.
