[Special Stock] Gaon Chips, Samsung Electronics' AGI Chip Secret Weapon...Emerging as a Key Partner

Gaon Chips is showing strong performance. The news that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, will visit Korea at the end of this month to meet Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong appears to be influencing the stock price. KB Securities analyzed that Samsung Electronics' AI alliance is just the beginning and that Gaon Chips' turnkey production method will be an important competitive advantage.

As of 11:02 AM on the 22nd, Gaon Chips is trading at 97,000 KRW, up 14.25% from the previous day.

Dongwon Kim, a researcher at KB Securities, said, "Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is visiting Korea for the first time in 10 years at the end of this month," and explained, "The cooperation between Meta and Samsung Electronics is expected to evolve from smartphones and VR in 2013-2014 to AI in 2024." He added, "It is expected to shift from hardware (HW) to artificial intelligence (AI) after 10 years."

He explained, "Meta's visit to Korea requires the integration of Samsung Electronics' semiconductor technology, which has established an AGI computing lab organization dedicated to universal artificial intelligence (AGI) semiconductor development in Silicon Valley, similar to OpenAI." He added, "This is because timely utilization of Samsung Foundry's production lines is possible for in-house AI chip production."

Researcher Kim analyzed, "It is expected that the visit of Meta to Samsung Electronics will focus intensively on strategic collaboration plans for AI semiconductors," and "Samsung Electronics has announced strengthened cooperation on SoftBank's ARM design assets for AI semiconductor production using cutting-edge 2-nanometer (nm) and 3-nanometer Gate-All-Around (GAA) processes.

He said, "In the future, global big tech companies wanting AI alliances with Samsung Electronics will increase rapidly, including Meta, OpenAI, and ARM," and "Preferred Networks (PFN), Japan's number one AI company, changed from using TSMC lines to Samsung Foundry for 2-nanometer AI chip production."

Furthermore, "Samsung Electronics' memory - non-memory - packaging and Gaon Chips' design - development - mass production turnkey system have advantages in shortening next-generation AI chip development time and reducing costs in the upcoming AGI era," he explained. He emphasized, "Due to such synergy effects, the Samsung AI alliance is still considered to be in its early stages."

Gartner forecasts that the AI semiconductor market size will grow 20-fold to $140 billion by 2030 in six years. Samsung Electronics' foundry market share is expected to double to 24% by 2028 in five years.

Researcher Kim evaluated, "Gaon Chips, which uniquely provides turnkey solutions from SoC circuit design to AI chip production, won the Best Design Partner award among ARM Design Partners (AADP) just one year after signing a partnership contract with ARM, and future collaboration with ARM is expected to strengthen."

Samsung Electronics is sharing design know-how with fabless semiconductor design companies DeepX and Rebellion, and design houses Gaon Chips and Semifive to strengthen the foundry ecosystem, while also enhancing support for Process Design Kits (PDK) and Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) services.