According to industry officials on Monday, Chey met Huang on Feb. 5 (local time) at a Korean-style fried chicken restaurant in Santa Clara, California. The venue is known as a favorite of Huang. Chey’s younger daughter, Choi Min-jung, CEO of Integral Health, and Huang’s daughter, Madison Huang, a senior director at Nvidia, accompanied them to underscore the depth of their personal relationship.
The talks were reported to have focused on cooperation centered on supplies of next-generation high-bandwidth memory, or HBM. With Nvidia preparing to launch its next AI accelerator, “Vera Rubin,” in the second half of this year, a stable supply of SK hynix’s sixth-generation HBM, known as HBM4, is seen as a key issue.
SK hynix currently is responsible for about 70 percent of Nvidia’s HBM3E volume for Blackwell and is said to be assigned with more than 60 percent of the initial HBM4 volume for Vera Rubin.
The two companies also likely shared mid- to long-term cooperation plans across next-generation memory, including HBM4E, custom HBM (cHBM), LPCAMM, a low-power DRAM module for servers, and NAND flash.
Industry officials said Solidigm’s AI business strategy was also likely on the agenda. SK Group recently changed the name of its U.S. NAND subsidiary and plans to invest about US$10 billion as it pushes to transform Solidigm into an AI solutions company.
Some in the industry say cooperation with Nvidia, which has AI solutions spanning autonomous driving and robotics, could expand beyond semiconductors to areas such as building next-generation AI data centers.
Chey has been staying in the United States since early this month to personally manage global AI-related networking, the report said. SK Supex Council Chairman Chey Chang-won attended an early-month meeting of the heads of 10 major conglomerates hosted by the president in his place, a move some interpreted as reflecting Chey Tae-won’s focus on major global issues in Silicon Valley, including strengthening ties with Nvidia.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.
