South Korean chipmaking giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are preparing to announce several major AI collaboration agreements in Silicon Valley, encompassing long-term supply contracts for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips and investments in AI data centers. These deals are expected to be finalized during a visit by South Korean President Lee Jae-myung to San Francisco for an AI summit.
Korean officials have confirmed to the media that long-running negotiations between South Korean companies and U.S. tech giants are in their final stages. The talks are expected to result in significant long-term supply contracts, strategic investment partnerships, and memorandums of understanding. The agreements will focus on long-term supplies of HBM chips, a critical hardware component for powering AI data centers and next-generation GPUs. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix currently control approximately 80% of the global HBM chip market.
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The San Francisco AI summit will host a major industry gathering. Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Eui-sun, and Naver founder Lee Hae-jin will all attend. They are scheduled to meet with U.S. tech leaders such as NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
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This visit is the next step in a plan announced by South Korea last month, which involves at least $880 billion in investments supported by Samsung Electronics, SK Group, and Naver to expand chip manufacturing and develop AI data centers. Sources say that more than half of the government's planned initial 8 gigawatts of AI data center capacity is expected to be advanced into concrete projects during the visit, with clear clients, locations, and Korean engineering partners identified. The source noted that U.S. tech companies account for 80% to 90% of orders supporting South Korea's latest expansion plan, indicating that U.S. demand is a major driver of investment in Korean semiconductors and AI infrastructure. Although U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has recently encouraged Samsung and SK hynix to expand production in the U.S., South Korea says Washington has not made a formal investment request.
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