South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Group have announced a number of AI and semiconductor initiatives worth $950 billion, along with major U.S. technology companies.
The partnerships were unveiled at an AI Summit in San Francisco hosted by South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung. The event was attended by technology industry leaders including NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan.
The agreements signed by SK Group are valued at $750 billion, with more than $500 billion of that going to an AI data center and next-generation memory initiative with NVIDIA.
Under the partnership, SK Hynix plans to supply NVIDIA with next-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and jointly develop new memory technologies. HBM is considered a critical component in delivering the computing performance needed for AI model training, AI agents and physical AI systems.
SK Telecom is also set to build a 2-gigawatt AI data center using NVIDIA Vera Rubin chips and SK Hynix HBM4 memory. The first facility is scheduled to be operational in 2027.
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics and Broadcom have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a strategic collaboration that could be worth more than $200 billion over the next five years.
The collaboration covers areas such as providing Samsung HBM memory for Broadcom’s next-generation AI accelerators, using Samsung’s 2-nanometer and below foundry process, and developing advanced chip packaging technologies.
With the demand for chips needed for AI services and data centers growing rapidly, companies such as NVIDIA, Broadcom, OpenAI, and Anthropic are trying to secure a long-term supply of chips and memory. As a result, South Korean semiconductor companies such as Samsung and SK Hynix are becoming more important partners in the AI industry.
However, the reported $950 billion is not a one-time direct investment. That is the estimated total value of several supply agreements, partnerships, infrastructure projects and MOUs announced for the next few years.
