Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to start buying memory chips directly from manufacturers in 2027, DigiTimes reported, citing U.S. research firm Edgewater Research. The DigiTimes piece is paywalled beyond the lede; fuller figures in follow-up coverage, including BigGo Finance, also attribute the numbers to that Edgewater note rather than to company statements.
Edgewater estimates Anthropic’s DRAM demand in 2027 at 40 billion to 50 billion units on a 1-gigabit-equivalent basis, a scale DigiTimes/BigGo describe as comparable to Nvidia’s. Roughly 20 percent of that total is expected to be purchased directly from memory makers, with the remainder still secured through server OEMs, CPU and GPU vendors, and neocloud operators. The direct-purchase share is projected to rise after 2028. Neither Anthropic nor OpenAI has confirmed those volumes or a 2027 start date in the retrieved reporting.
DigiTimes said the outlook reflects model developers taking greater control of chip and data-center design. Aju Press, following the same industry report, said the shift could create a new class of direct customers for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which have traditionally supplied advanced memory largely through semiconductor companies, cloud providers, and system makers.
Aju Press also cautioned that would not necessarily cut Nvidia or other accelerator suppliers out of the chain. AI developers remain heavily dependent on GPUs, and high-bandwidth memory is physically integrated with accelerators through advanced packaging, unlike conventional server memory that can be purchased separately. About 80% of the projected 2027 Anthropic volume would still move through intermediaries under Edgewater’s own split.
Some supply relationships are already in place, which complicates a clean “starting in 2027” frame. In October 2025, OpenAI’s Stargate project was reported to include advanced-memory partnerships with Samsung and SK Hynix. Contrary Research wrote that OpenAI had been reported to plan to consume a large share of global DRAM availability for that cluster through those deals. In May and June 2026, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron joined Anthropic’s Series H as strategic infrastructure partners. Micron announced a multi-year agreement to provide HBM, DRAM, and solid-state drives for Anthropic’s data-center infrastructure and took a stake in the round. Aju Press reported in July 2026 that Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said the company had signed investment and supply agreements with large memory providers including Samsung and SK Group.
Memory remains one of the tightest AI-infrastructure constraints into 2027. If Edgewater’s forecast holds, Anthropic and OpenAI become more visible direct counterparties of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron for part of their books, while most volume still runs through OEMs and accelerator vendors — and HBM stays packaged with GPUs. The commercial stakes are allocation and pricing power for memory makers; the open question is how much of the “direct” share is firm contracts versus an analyst projection circulating through DigiTimes and Korean follow-ups. The original Chosun Ilbo lead was not independently retrieved for this story.