Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Co have forged initial agreements to supply chips and other gear to OpenAI’s Stargate project, a deal that helps shore up their lead in advanced memory chips for artificial intelligence (AI).
OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman yesterday signed a letter of intent to enlist South Korea’s two biggest companies in the data center construction effort, which involves the biggest players in AI from Nvidia Corp to Oracle Corp. Overall demand from OpenAI could reach 900,000 wafers per month as Stargate expands across the globe, the South Korean companies said in separate statements.
That projection for demand is more than double the current global capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), underscoring Stargate’s enormity and quickening global AI development, SK Hynix said in its statement.
Photo: EPA
OpenAI and Nvidia are helping lead a global push to build data centers for a new generation of AI tools — an effort that is expected to cost trillions of dollars and require chips, servers, cooling systems and copious amounts of electricity. Altman was due in Taipei next, where he is slated to meet with AI linchpins Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), local media reported.
The pact signed in Seoul is aimed at creating a longer-term partnership between the US’ most valuable AI start-up and two Asian companies that, along with Micron Technology Inc, dominate the memorychip sphere. As part of the agreement, the partners would help Seoul develop a domestic AI ecosystem — something many governments are exploring to try and harness a potentially transformative technology.
“I hope that Samsung and SK will play a key role in the global spread of AI together with OpenAI,” South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said in the statement.
Last month, Nvidia announced it would invest as much as US$100 billion in OpenAI to support new data centers and other infrastructure, a blockbuster deal that underscores booming demand for services such as ChatGPT and the computing power needed to make them run.
SK Hynix is the global leader in the provision of HBM essential to Nvidia’s AI accelerators, but Samsung is vying to become a major supplier as well.
South Korea’s equity benchmark yesterday crossed a new milestone just a month after surpassing the once-unthinkable 5,000 mark as surging global memory demand powers the country’s biggest chipmakers. The KOSPI advanced as much as 2.6 percent to a record 6,123, with Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc each gaining more than 2 percent. With the benchmark now up 45 percent this year, South Korea’s stock market capitalization has also moved past France’s, following last month’s overtaking of Germany’s. Long overlooked by foreign funds, despite being undervalued, South Korean stocks have now emerged as clear winners in the global market. The so-called “artificial intelligence
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