On October 1st OpenAI signed two simultaneous deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for 40% of the worlds DRAM supply. Now, did OpenAI’s competition suspect some big RAM deals could be signed in late 2025? Yes. Ok, but did they think it would be deals this huge and with multiple companies? NO! In fact, if you go back and read reporting on Sam Altman’s now infamous trip to South Korea on October 1st, even just mere hours before the massive deals with Samsung and SK Hynix were simultaneously signed – most reporting simply mentioned vague reports about Sam talking to Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC, and Foxconn. But the reporting at the time was soft, almost dismissive — “exploring ties,” “seeking cooperation,” “probing for partnerships.” Nobody hinted that OpenAI was about to swallow up to 40% of global DRAM output – even on morning before it happened! Nobody saw this coming - this is clear in the lack of reporting about the deals before they were announced, and every MLID Source who works in DRAM manufacturing and distribution insist this took everyone in the industry by surprise.
To be clear - the shock wasn’t that OpenAI made a big deal, no, it was that they made two massive deals this big, at the same time, with Samsung and SK Hynix simultaneously! In fact, according to our sources - both companies had no idea how big each other's deal was, nor how close to simultaneous they were. And this secrecy mattered. It mattered a lot.
Had Samsung known SK Hynix was about to commit a similar chunk of supply — or vice-versa — the pricing and terms would have likely been different. It’s entirely conceivable they wouldn’t have both agreed to supply such a substantial part of global supply if they had known more...but at the end of the day - OpenAI did succeed in keeping the circles tight, locking down the NDAs, and leveraging the fact that these companies assumed the other wasn’t giving up this much wafer volume simultaneously…in order to make a surgical strike on the global RAM supply chain…and it's worked so far...
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