After a bruising stretch for Korean equities, the week ended on a note that gave investors something to chew on besides losses. Reports surfaced on July 2 that Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, is in early discussions with Samsung Electronics about manufacturing custom AI chips using Samsung’s 2nm process technology.
The discussions are preliminary. Current talks reportedly center on chip specifications, power consumption targets, and how custom silicon would integrate into server infrastructure.
But the context around these talks is anything but preliminary. Anthropic closed its massive Series H funding round on May 28, raising $65B at a post-money valuation of $965B. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both participated as strategic investors in that round.
If the deal progresses to a formal agreement, it could reportedly surpass previous high-profile foundry contracts Samsung has landed, including its work with Tesla. That would catapult Samsung into the upper tier of AI ASIC production, a market it has historically watched from the sidelines while TSMC dominated.
The Korean market rollercoaster
