AMD's Lisa Su meets semiconductor chiefs at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, bolstering AI cooperation

[Financial News] During her visit to Korea, AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su met with Korean semiconductor leaders, including Jun Young-hyun, vice chairman and head of Samsung Electronics Device Solutions (DS) Division, and Noh-Jung Kwak, president and CEO of SK hynix, as part of efforts to advance cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI).
Su also stepped up AI cooperation at the national level, beyond the corporate sphere, saying AMD plans to establish an AI research hub in Korea by the end of this year and recruit several hundred AI researchers over the next several years.
Industry sources said on the 7th that Su met that day with key executives, including Vice Chairman Jun, at Samsung Electronics' Seocho office in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Attention is focused on whether the two companies will discuss further cooperation in areas including HBM and foundry services (contract chip manufacturing).
The meeting came about seven months after the two companies formalized their cooperation in AI semiconductors, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM), during Su's visit to Korea last March. At the time, Su toured production lines and other facilities at Samsung Electronics' Pyeongtaek campus with key Samsung semiconductor executives. Shortly after the companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to expand cooperation in next-generation AI memory and computing technologies, AMD designated Samsung Electronics as the preferred supplier of HBM4 (sixth-generation memory) for its next-generation AI accelerator, the AMD Instinct MI455X GPU.
Whether the two companies will expand their cooperation into foundry services is now a key question. Samsung Electronics and AMD are also said to have discussed potential foundry cooperation, including next-generation contract chip manufacturing; at their previous meeting, they met with Han Jinman, head of the foundry business.
Su is also said to have met SK hynix President Noh-Jung Kwak at an undisclosed location in Seoul that day. It was the first time the two leaders had met in Korea. With demand for AI accelerators surging, the possibility has been raised that AMD and SK hynix could broaden their cooperation in high-performance memory, including HBM4.
Earlier, Su met Ryu Jemyoung, Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Jongno District, Seoul. “We are pursuing the establishment of an AI research center called ‘CoE’ to expand Korea’s AI ecosystem,” she said. “We plan to bring several hundred outstanding AI research talents to the center.”
The research center is planned to be established by the end of this year, while recruitment will take place over the next several years. Su said, “We know there is strong demand for AI computing resources in Korea,” adding, “We plan not to hold back on investment in expanding computing capacity so that AI startups and users can easily make use of AI.”
The government is also expanding its cooperation with AMD to include physical AI. In a background briefing after the meeting, Lee Do-gyu, director general of the ICT Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said Vice Minister Ryu had proposed partnerships with AMD on three major projects—semiconductors, AI data centers and physical AI—and that CEO Lisa Su had called this “the right direction and an ambitious vision,” expressing her willingness to participate actively.
[email protected] Lim Soo-bin, Kim Hak-jae and Yoon Hong-jip Reporter