South Korea’s HBM stacks soar to $4,000: The get-rich-quick business of Shenzhen’s 20-something middlemen hidden in low-end chips

A smuggling network is moving Samsung and SK Hynix HBM3E memory into mainland China by exploiting a regulatory loophole: shell chip-design firms pair the restricted high-bandwidth memory with deliberately low-end processors on a single substrate, so shipments clear export checks as ordinary low-performance chips before transiting through Hong Kong to Shenzhen workshops that heat-strip the HBM from the boards. Black-market prices for a single stack of HBM3E have surged from a few hundred dollars a year ago to roughly $4,000, and since one AI training chip requires 6-8 stacks, buyers face $24,000-$32,000 in memory costs per chip. The shortage is tied to constrained domestic advanced-node HBM supply, with some customers of Huawei's next-generation Ascend 960DT clusters—due Q1 2027—reportedly told to source memory themselves. A 20-something Shenzhen broker reportedly built a fortune in three years brokering these deals, but the influx of copycat operators has made the route conspicuous, drawing scrutiny from regulators in multiple countries, per Korean SBS reporting. The network's lead smuggler is reportedly seeking to sell his company stake next year, signaling expectations of a crackdown; watch for enforcement actions and the pace of domestic HBM substitution.