South Korea announced $950 billion in new AI initiatives involving Samsung Electronics, SK Group and US tech firms as global AI leaders rush to address a shortage of faster chips needed to power and develop more advanced systems. SK Group has signed deals worth $750 billion, including SK Hynix's partnership with Nvidia valued at more than $500 billion, South Korea's presidential Blue House said after an AI summit hosted by President Lee Jae Myung in San Francisco. Samsung Electronics said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Broadcom covering up to $200 billion across memory chips, foundry services and advanced packaging.
The deals are the latest moves by US AI firms hoping to lock in supply as demand for chips and computing infrastructure outstrips supply, driving technology companies into closer partnerships with South Korea's semiconductor and memory leaders. Speaking at the summit, Lee said South Korea would lead the way into a new era of AI in partnership with global technology companies, making its "dynamic AI ecosystem" available to expand the global market for industrial and personal AI applications. He unveiled a "San Francisco AI Declaration" outlining South Korea's ambitions for technological cooperation with the United States.
"I'd like to present a vision for the future of AI and propose global cooperation to make it happen," Lee said. Lee separately met Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan before joining the summit. Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y.
Lee, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung and Naver founder Lee Hae-jin also attended. Nvidia and South Korea's SK Group unveiled a new AI initiative valued at $500 billion spanning large-scale AI data centres and next-generation memory. The initiative includes a long-term partnership with SK Hynix to secure next-generation memory supplies for Nvidia and jointly develop high-bandwidth memory for AI training, AI agents and physical AI applications.
As part of the agreement, SK Telecom plans to build a 2-gigawatt data centre powered by Vera Rubin chips and SK Hynix's HBM4 high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The data centre is due to come online in 2027. Samsung Electronics said it will work with Broadcom to develop its next-generation AI accelerator based on Samsung's HBM…
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