The 2025 Global Supercomputing Conference (SC25) was held last week in St. Louis, USA, where attendees widely agreed that high demand for memory—particularly Flash Memory and DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory)—will continue to drive prices upward. Wedbush analysts noted that the event was largely dominated by AI and high-performance computing (HPC) demonstrations, with discussions centered on shortages in NAND and DRAM supply, which are fueling a surge in memory prices.

Analysts Matt Bryson and Antoine Legault wrote in an investor report, "Memory supply remains tight, with NAND recently experiencing the same sharp price hikes as DRAM did starting in October. The price increases have been abrupt, often reaching double-digit percentages, and sometimes occurring multiple times within the past month."

Key players in the DRAM market include SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron Technology (MU). Meanwhile, the largest NAND manufacturers are Samsung, SK Hynix, Western Digital (WDC), Intel (INTC), and Micron.

Wedbush also highlighted growing interest in quantum computing at the conference. Bryson noted, "While much of the activity in quantum computing remains focused on supporting large labs or universities, we are seeing increasing commercial interest in the technology and its various approaches, including from companies like IBM (IBM), Fujitsu, D-Wave (QBTS), IonQ (IONQ), Quantum Computing (QUBT), Qunova, and IQM."

Additionally, Wedbush examined the processors used in the world’s top 500 supercomputers. This year’s list featured 45 new entrants, though none broke into the existing top 10. However, with several new U.S. Department of Energy projects using AMD and NVIDIA (NVDA) systems currently in development, this is expected to change next year. Among the new systems, processors from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA appeared most frequently, with Arm (ARM) accounting for 10% of new processors.

Bryson added, "NVIDIA once again emerged as the leading single supplier for supercomputing system slots, securing 30 GPU slots and 6 CPU slots. Intel claimed 25 slots (all CPUs), while AMD took 18 slots (14 CPUs and 4 GPUs)."

Wedbush maintains a "Neutral" rating on Intel, while both AMD and NVIDIA are rated "Outperform."