According to industry sources on Monday, Choi Tae-won, chairman of South Korea's SK Group, recently met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in the United States. The two parties discussed high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supply and broader artificial intelligence business cooperation. According to sources, the meeting took place at a fried chicken restaurant in California earlier this month.
The two parties discussed supply plans for HBM4, the next-generation HBM technology expected to be used in Nvidia’s upcoming AI accelerator called Vera Rubin.
SK Hynix, a subsidiary of SK Group, is a major supplier of Nvidia's HBM products. The company has previously stated that it is promoting mass production of HBM4 in accordance with the schedule agreed with customers.
An SK hynix executive said: "Even if production is fully launched, the company may still not be able to fully meet customer demand, which provides an opportunity for some competitors to win supply contracts. However, our leadership position and position as a major supplier will remain unchanged due to product performance, manufacturing capabilities and quality."
Rival Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to start production of HBM4 products in the second half of this year.
Industry sources said SK Hynix is still likely to be Nvidia's largest HBM supplier this year, with its share of the HBM4 market expected to be about 70%.
The discussions also touched on potential cooperation with SK Group, which is planning to expand its artificial intelligence solutions business beyond memory chips, the sources said.
According to reports, Cui Taiyuan has been in the United States since the beginning of this month and held a series of meetings with executives of some large American technology companies.