Headquarters of Samsung in Mountain View, California, on October 28, 2018.
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Shares of South Korean chip heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix surged Thursday, a day after the 2 firms partnered with artificial-intelligence main OpenAI as a part of the U.S. agency’s Stargate initiative.
Samsung shares hit their highest since January 2021, rising over 4%, whereas SK Hynix inventory surged greater than 9% — highest since 2000.
OpenAI said in a statement that this partnership will “focus on increasing the supply of advanced memory chips essential for next-generation AI and expanding data center capacity in Korea.”
The ChatGPT-maker stated the 2 South Korean companies plan to scale up manufacturing of superior reminiscence chips, that are important to energy its AI fashions.
The announcement got here as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Seoul, and the highest leaders at Samsung and SK Hynix.
OpenAI has also signed a series of agreements to discover creating next-generation AI knowledge facilities in South Korea, together with with the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT, telecommunications operator SK Telecom, as properly as with Samsung subsidiaries.
Earlier this month, SK Hynix announced that it was able to mass-produce its next-generation high-bandwidth reminiscence chips, cementing its main place within the AI worth chain. HBM is a sort of reminiscence that’s utilized in chipsets for artificial-intelligence computing, together with in chips from world AI big Nvidia — a serious shopper of SK Hynix.
HBM4 chips are anticipated to be the principle AI reminiscence chip wanted for Nvidia’s next-generation Rubin structure — a extra highly effective AI chip for world knowledge facilities.
SK Hynix has been a essential chip provider to Nvidia, whereas rival Samsung has reportedly been working to get its HBM4 chips licensed by Nvidia.
Samsung has historically been the market chief in reminiscence, however its place has been threatened by SK Hynix that has taken a lead within the HBM area. A report from Counterpoint Research in July discovered that SK Hynix had caught up with Samsung’s reminiscence revenues within the second quarter, with each now vying for the highest place within the world reminiscence market.
Samsung’s second-quarter earnings missed expectations, as income from its chip enterprise declined virtually 94% yr on yr, though its Chief Financial Officer Soon-cheol Park stated that the corporate expects a rebound within the second half of the yr.
— CNBC’s Dylan Butts contributed to this report.