Under the boom of AI infrastructure, storage demand remains strong! Faced with heavy pressure from Trump's tariffs, South Korea's exports have grown for three consecutive months.

Although the United States has imposed higher tariffs, strong semiconductor and automobile exports have supported South Korea's export data, which is known as the "global economic canary", showing steady growth for three consecutive months. The latest resilient export data highlights leaders in high-end manufacturing such as semiconductors, especially in the critical area of storage chips that are vital for South Korea's economic growth, demonstrating strong export resilience in the face of comprehensive US government tariff policies. South Korean customs statistics show that South Korea's shipments to overseas markets increased by 1.3% year-on-year in August, compared to a 5.8% increase in July. Adjusted for working days, South Korea's exports in August increased significantly by 5.8% year-on-year, exceeding economists' expectations and matching the growth rate in July. Imports, on the other hand, decreased by 4%, resulting in a trade surplus of $6.5 billion for South Korea. Export momentum remains strong - despite a significant increase in US tariffs, South Korean exports are still in a growth cycle The strong expansion of exports in August also means that South Korea's export volume has grown for three consecutive months, providing a significant boost to South Korea's export-reliant economy. However, some analysts believe that this respite may be short-lived, as the pre-shipping effect in response to higher tariffs is expected to gradually fade, and potential semiconductor-related tariff policies led by the Trump administration could weaken South Korea's storage chip export momentum. An early tariff agreement reached in late July with Washington at the last minute allows South Korean manufacturers to avoid the worst-case scenario; previously, US President Donald Trump had threatened to impose a 25% tariff on products imported from South Korea. Nonetheless, the newly established 15% tariff parity marks a significant shift from the long-standing zero-tariff regime secured by bilateral trade agreements. The Bank of Korea warned last week that the impact of tariffs would spread throughout the South Korean economy through trade, financial markets, and business confidence. South Korea's export trade is expected to be the first hit, as rising costs erode South Korea's export competitiveness and orders from the US begin to weaken or significantly decrease due to tariff pressure, leading to a contraction in South Korea's exports to the US. At the time of the release of the above-mentioned data, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak held the first offline face-to-face summit with Trump, reaffirming their commitment to strengthening economic ties and pledging to expand cooperation in advanced manufacturing and the chip industry chain. Bank of Korea Governor Lee Chang-yong said at a policy briefing last week that despite a significant increase in US tariffs, South Korea's exports have exceeded market expectations driven by storage chips and automobile exports. He emphasized that these increments have raised this year's South Korean GDP growth forecast by about 0.2 percentage points, but also warned that the impact of tariffs could intensify over time. The central bank maintains its growth forecast for 2026 at 1.6%. "Despite concerns about the Trump administration's semiconductor tariff policies, the duration of the current semiconductor cycle's demand has been longer than we previously expected," Lee said after the Bank of Korea kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2.5% last Thursday. "If chip exports continue to be strong, this could provide additional upside for the economy." Storage chips - crucial for South Korean exports and the South Korean economy With the strong growth of semiconductor exports dominated by HBM storage systems and enterprise-grade NAND storage, South Korea, the fourth largest economy in Asia, has experienced sustained strong export growth in recent years, driving long-term GDP growth despite facing pressures such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains, high inflation in the United States, Trump's tariffs, etc. South Korea is the home to the world's two largest storage chip manufacturers - SK Hynix and Samsung. The global HBM leader SK Hynix has become NVIDIA's core HBM supplier, supplying the HBM storage systems used in NVIDIA's AI GPUs H100/H200 since the end of 2022. In addition, NVIDIA's latest AI GPUs based on the Blackwell architecture, such as the B200/GB200/GB300, will also be equipped with the latest generation HBM storage system produced by SK Hynix - HBM3E, and NVIDIA's next-gen Rubin architecture AI GPU is expected to be equipped with SK Hynix's next-gen HBM storage system - HBM4. Another storage giant, Samsung, is one of the world's largest tech companies and the largest consumer-grade DRAM and NAND storage chip and enterprise-grade NAND storage component supplier globally, and is also striving to become a supplier of HBM storage systems for NVIDIA's flagship AI GPU series. Morgan Stanley recently stated in a research report that in the unprecedented wave of AI infrastructure investment by global enterprises and government agencies, the demand for core storage chips closely related to AI training/inference systems remains extremely strong, driving revenue growth for data center storage product lines including HBM storage systems, server-level DDR5, and enterprise-grade SSDs. As breakthrough AI applications such as AI smart bodies penetrate various industries globally, bringing an enormous amount of "AI inference edge computing power demand", the future prospects for AI chips, HBM storage systems, enterprise-grade SSDs, and high-performance network and power equipment in the field of AI computing infrastructure construction will continue to be immense. In addition, the AI boom at the edge will also drive consumer-grade DRAM and NAND storage demand towards a new growth curve. Companies have urgently accelerated the wide application of two core categories of AI applications - generative AI applications and AI smart bodies to enhance efficiency and reduce operating costs, indicating that AI is evolving from an information assistance tool to a highly intelligent productivity tool. Another Wall Street institution, JPMorgan Chase, expects the broader pricing advantage of DRAM and NAND to continue until the remainder of 2025 and 2026. The institution predicts that DRAM pricing will continue to strengthen in the remaining time of 2025 and 2026 due to the continued strong demand for HBM and the tight supply of non-AI DRAM. Additionally, JPMorgan Chase expects a significant expansion of production capacity for the next generation HBM - HBM4 to further tighten supply, limiting the supply of non-HBM type DRAM product lines and NAND production lines, thus continuing to drive upward pressure on prices.