Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Advanced Micro Devices announced on Wednesday that they have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their strategic collaboration on supplying memory chips for artificial intelligence infrastructure.
In a joint statement, the companies indicated that the agreement will focus on supplying Samsung's next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) for AMD's upcoming Instinct MI455X AI accelerators, and providing optimized DDR5 memory for AMD's sixth-generation EPYC processors.
The two companies will also explore opportunities for foundry cooperation, with Samsung potentially providing chip manufacturing services for AMD's next-generation products.
Under the agreement, Samsung will become a core HBM4 supplier for AMD's next-generation AI graphics cards. The South Korean company was already a primary HBM supplier for AMD, providing HBM3E chips for AMD's MI350X and MI355X accelerators.
The timing of this agreement coincides with Nvidia's annual developer conference, GTC. Earlier this week, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang announced a foundry partnership with the South Korean company and expressed confidence in its HBM4 chips.
This collaboration highlights the intensifying competition among global chip manufacturers to secure long-term supply agreements for advanced memory, as AI demand reshapes the semiconductor industry and HBM chip supplies become increasingly tight.
Last month, AMD announced an agreement with Meta Platforms, potentially selling up to $60 billion worth of AI chips over the next five years. The deal allows Meta to purchase up to 10% of AMD's relevant chips. AMD also signed a similar agreement with OpenAI last year.
As the world's largest memory chip manufacturer, Samsung is working to close the gap with competitors in the rapidly growing HBM sector. According to market research firm Counterpoint, Samsung currently holds approximately 22% of the global HBM market, while market leader SK Hynix holds 57%.
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