Newshot Article title: SMIC 赵海军: AI computing power is in short supply, and semiconductor foundry capacity will be very tight in 2027
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SMIC 赵海军: AI computing power is in short supply, and semiconductor foundry capacity will be very tight in 2027
IT Home, November 13 news: at SMIC's Q3 2026 earnings call held today, SMIC co-CEO 赵海军 expressed a positive view of the future development of the semiconductor foundry industry.
He believes that AI development is currently "in the ascendant," and demand for computing power outstrips supply. The current industry consensus is that 2027 will be a year of very tight capacity, expected to last until mid-to-late 2028. After mid-2028, AI-related memory demand may reach a basic supply-demand balance, while computing power or other supporting chips may remain in short supply.
Looking at specific wafer revenue, demand for smartphones and mid-to-low-end consumer products is weakening and may continue to decline in the future.
He also mentioned that the company's performance in the off-season was not weak. Although orders for smartphones and some consumer categories weakened somewhat, the company fully leveraged its ability to coordinate and allocate across multiple process platforms, shifting the freed-up capacity toward high-demand, high-value-added products such as specialty memory and BCD.
For the fourth quarter, SMIC expects shipments to remain steady. Changes in product mix and pricing that follows market conditions will push up average selling prices, and revenue is expected to grow 4% to 6% quarter over quarter. At the same time, cost pressures such as depreciation and raw materials continue to increase, and the company's increased engineering and R&D wafer starts in the fourth quarter mean capacity utilization will decline slightly on the basis of continued release of expanded capacity. As a result, the gross margin guidance given is flat with the previous quarter's guidance, at 26% to 28%.
赵海军 said the company's full-year sales revenue is expected to exceed US$12 billion (IT Home note: roughly RMB 80.221 billion at current exchange rates), up nearly 30% year over year. With total depreciation increasing about 30% from last year, gross margin is expected to be around 26%, up about 5 percentage points year over year.
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