According to market analysis on Wednesday, driven by strong demand for advanced chips in artificial intelligence data centers and rising prices of memory products, the global semiconductor market is expected to exceed $1 trillion annually by 2030-31.

Gaurav Gupta, Vice President and Senior Analyst at Gartner, also stated in his market outlook at the Semicon Korea 2025 event that sales of high bandwidth memory (cutting-edge memory chips supporting artificial intelligence) will grow by over 60% this year.

Gupta said, "Last year, the semiconductor market revenue increased by 18.1%, mainly due to rising memory prices and increased demand for artificial intelligence chips

Gupta predicts that the market size will grow by 12.7% this year, reaching $705 billion, thanks not only to the sales growth of graphics processors and AI processors that led the growth last year, but also to the sales growth of analog semiconductors. It is expected that by 2028, the market size will grow to $829 billion.

Gupta said, "Due to supply shortages, the price of artificial intelligence memory will rise, and the growth of the automotive chip market (including advanced driving assistance systems and high-performance computing for cars) will also contribute to this year's overall performance

Analysts say that HBM chips are mainly led by South Korean chip manufacturers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, and are expected to experience strong growth this year, accounting for approximately 30.6% of total DRAM revenue.

Compared to the same period last year, HBM sales are expected to increase by 67% this year. Last year's annual income growth rate was 318.5%.

But Gupta said that due to the cyclical nature of the memory chip market, growth is expected to slow down from next year. In 2026, the sales growth rate of HBM is expected to reach 22%, 8% in 2027, and 21.3% in 2028.

The three-day annual semiconductor trade show "Semicon Korea 2025" kicked off on Wednesday at the Seoul International Convention and Exhibition Center. According to the organizers, this year's exhibition is expected to attract a record breaking 70000 visitors, with 500 companies showcasing cutting-edge chip manufacturing technology.

At the beginning of the event, Song Zaihe, Chief Technology Officer of Samsung Electronics, delivered a keynote speech emphasizing the importance of semiconductors for the development of artificial intelligence, in order to "catch up" with the capabilities of the human brain.

In his keynote speech, Song Zhiqiang stated, "Artificial intelligence has made tremendous progress in the past 80 years, but there is still much to learn compared to the human brain, which has evolved for 3.4 billion years

The chief technology officer said: "Semiconductors are crucial to the survival of key technologies in the post AI era, such as autonomous vehicle, high-speed computing, quantum computing, humanoid robots and biotechnology."

He added that artificial intelligence chips will continue to develop, detecting data with higher accuracy and connecting higher value applications.