(Yonhap)
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have signed massive investment agreements worth a combined US$950 billion with major US tech firms, strengthening their alliances in the artificial intelligence sector. Taking advantage of President Lee Jae Myung’s visit to the US, the two Korean corporations announced a series of large-scale investment and supply chain tie-ups with global AI companies, solidifying their positions as key partners across global AI infrastructure in moving beyond mere suppliers of semiconductors.On Friday at an AI summit in San Francisco, Korean and American companies signed six agreements covering areas like cooperation in semiconductor supply and output as well as construction of AI data centers. This adoption of a collaborative model moves beyond the supply of memory chips to joint development of all AI infrastructure, including AI data centers, cloud services and next-generation computing systems.SK Group secured the biggest deal with US tech firms in AI infrastructure cooperation, with the conglomerate’s deals worth US$750 billion over five years. The group signed a letter of intent with Nvidia on comprehensive cooperation worth US$500 billion to build such infrastructure. Under the partnership, Nvidia gets a stable supply of high-bandwidth memory, a major strength of SK Hynix, while the latter sets the basis to broaden the foundation for growing its memory business. SK Telecom will also receive priority supply of graphics processing units from Nvidia to build a 2-gigawatt AI factory in Korea. SK Group will adopt Vera Rubin, Nvidia’s new AI supercomputing platform, and start building a high-performance AI factory slated to come online in 2027. SK Group also agreed to a combined US$250 billion in deals, including a long-term memory contract with Microsoft and a memorandum of understanding with Anthropic to jointly build gigawatt-scale AI data centers in Korea.Samsung Electronics will also pursue a strategic partnership worth over US$200 billion in memory and foundry capacity through 2030 with American chip designer Broadcom. The Korean company will supply high-performance memory chips required for AI accelerators (application-specific integrated circuits) designed by Broadcom, and expand chip output cooperation to include advanced foundry and packaging processes.Another goal is manufacturing-based collaboration in AI infrastructure. Hyundai Motor Group unveiled its “physical AI” vision and plans for strategic collaborations with Nvidia, Waymo, Google DeepMind and others to build an ecosystem for the development of intelligent devices such as robots and self-driving vehicles.Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix cited securing stable supply chains and upgrading global partnerships in the global AI race as their core achievements. “The AI era cannot be built by the efforts of one company or nation alone,” Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong said at the summit. “Global cooperation is crucial for building a complete ecosystem spanning innovative AI models, cutting-edge semiconductors, data centers for stable services and abundant electricity.”SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won stressed the need to make Korea an “AI-native nation” during the summit. Assessing the outcome of the summit, Kim Hyeong-joon, the head of the Korea-based Next-Generation Intelligent Semiconductor Foundation, said, “While companies previously had individual contracts on this, semiconductors now play a central role in Korea-US cooperation.”The conclusion of long-term supply contracts by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix is also expected to raise momentum for three “megaprojects” promoted by the Lee administration. “The companies have devised concrete investment and cooperative plans with global partners in each of the key areas of the three megaprojects, ranging from semiconductors to AI data centers and physical AI,” said Kim Yong-beom, the Blue House director of policy, pledging to produce tangible results early.By Bae Ji-hyun, staff reporterPlease direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
