Samsung Electronics Co must adopt a “do-or-die” mindset to confront the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI) that are upending the industry, Yonhap news cited chairman Jay Y. Lee as saying yesterday.
Samsung has been struggling to meet Nvidia Corp’s requirements, as rival SK Hynix Inc has become the titan’s main supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for its AI graphics processing units.
The world’s largest memorychip maker in October last year acknowledged that it was facing a “crisis” and admitted questions had arisen about its “fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company.”
Photo: Jung Yeon-je, AFP
“Samsung is facing a do-or-die survival issue. We need to reflect deeply from the top,” Lee was quoted as saying during a training for top executives.
Lee’s message was to emphasize that “what matters is not the crisis itself, but the attitude in dealing with it,” Yonhap reported, citing company sources.
Lee also said that “even if it means sacrificing short-term profits, we must invest for the future,” Yonhap added.
A Samsung spokesperson yesterday said that Lee had not “said the message himself” without giving further details.
Separately, South Korean semiconductor exports to China plunged last month, deepening concerns about a cooling in global demand already threatened by US tariffs, as Washington steps up its restrictions on technology supplies to Beijing.
Chip sales to the world’s second-largest economy, including Hong Kong, fell 31.8 percent from a year earlier, the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Sunday. That is bigger than the 22.5 percent contraction reported for January and comes after a rally last year that helped fuel South Korea’s economic growth.
The decline at the beginning of this year coincides with the US implementing its export restrictions on cutting-edge semiconductors to China. The US Department of Commerce in December last year slapped fresh curbs on the sale of HBM chips to China.
South Korea’s total semiconductor exports slipped 3 percent from a year earlier last month, ministry data showed.
Declining prices in conventional memory chips and a technological transition in semiconductor production were among reasons the growth in exports slowed, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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