SK Hynix will present the direction of evolution for memory semiconductors in response to the growth of the AI (artificial intelligence) industry, along with the importance of power efficiency. As the bottleneck for improving AI performance shifts from computation to memory, and power consumption emerges as a new constraint factor, the company is set to introduce technical solutions to overcome these challenges.
At the second-day conference of 'Smart Energy Plus (SEP) 2026,' scheduled to be held on the 29th at Hall B of COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Choi Jun-yong, Vice President of HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) Business Planning at SK Hynix, will deliver a presentation titled "Memory to Define The Future of AI — From the Memory Wall to the Energy Wall."
Vice President Choi diagnoses AI as a new semiconductor growth cycle following PCs, mobile devices, and the cloud. He explains that while the increase in devices drove semiconductor demand in the past, the increase in intelligence is driving semiconductor demand in the AI era.
As computational performance improves, the bottleneck for AI has shifted to memory, prompting HBM to evolve around greater capacity, faster speeds, and closer connections. The technological progression from HBM3E (5th generation) to HBM4 (6th generation) and HBM4E (7th generation) is a representative example of this evolution.
Vice President Choi plans to present the "Energy Wall" as the next challenge. He notes that with the surge in power consumption at data centers, power supply issues have emerged as a factor constraining AI scaling itself, going beyond simple cost concerns. Accordingly, he is expected to emphasize that AI competitiveness should be evaluated not merely by computational performance, but by how much intelligence can be realized within limited energy resources.
As technical solutions, he will propose improving HBM bandwidth per unit of power, shortening the distance between computing devices and memory through 3D integration, and custom HBM architectures optimized for specific workloads. The message is that the direction of memory evolution in the AI era must expand from "more, faster, closer" to "The Greener."
Meanwhile, 'SEP 2026' is an event co-hosted by MoneyToday and COEX, and organized by the National Assembly Hydrogen Economy Forum. It will be held at Hall B of COEX from the 28th to the 30th. LG Group, HD Hyundai Electric, Doosan Enerbility, Hyundai Rotem, Unison, the Army, Seoul City, and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, among others, will set up booths to showcase energy security strategies for the AI era. Strategies for electric and hydrogen vehicles from Hyundai Motor Company, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche, and Polestar can also be reviewed.
At the conference, senior executives from Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Hyundai Motor Company, LG Electronics, POSCO Holdings, Bright Energy Partners, LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI, SK On, OCI Power, and HD Hyundai Electric are scheduled to deliver presentations.
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