OpenAI's Astra Launch Reignites AI Computing Power Enthusiasm, Storage Chips Emerge as New Main Line

动察 Beating AI Flash: OpenAI's latest flagship model Astra has reignited market enthusiasm for AI infrastructure, with memory chips emerging as the first sector to benefit. U.S. semiconductor stocks rallied broadly on Friday, with Micron Technology surging over 6% and SanDisk jumping nearly 12%; Asian markets extended gains on Monday, with SK Hynix rising about 8%, Samsung Electronics up over 5%, and Kioxia climbing roughly 10%.

Institutions believe that as frontier AI model capabilities continue to improve, computing power demand will grow further, potentially intensifying bottlenecks in memory and networking segments. HBM, DRAM, and related technologies are expected to re-emerge as key themes in AI infrastructure trading. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley project that global AI capital expenditure will reach $1.3 trillion to $1.5 trillion by 2027, with over half potentially allocated to memory construction.

Charu Channa, Chief Investment Strategist at Saxo Bank, noted that Astra's release further supports sustained growth in AI spending, and the rising computing power demands of frontier models will benefit memory chip makers such as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics.

As AI models grow increasingly powerful, the "computing power trade" focused solely on GPUs is expanding into a "memory trade" encompassing HBM, DRAM, and beyond, positioning memory chips as a key beneficiary in the next wave of AI infrastructure investment.