Meeting in Las Vegas, USA on the 8th
"SK Hynix's development capabilities improved, leading to a turnaround"
Exchanged views on Physical AI
"AI is not optional... it changes the entire field"
Visited SK and Samsung Electronics booths
Choi Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, said on the 8th (local time) that he met Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, and discussed that the recent development speed of SK Hynix's High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is becoming faster than NVIDIA's demands.
On the 8th (local time), Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK, attending 'CES 2025' held in Las Vegas, USA, is conducting a Q&A session at the business lounge set up at the SK exhibition booth. Photo by Yonhap News
Chairman Choi held a press briefing at the SK exhibition hall at CES 2025, the world's largest electronics and information technology (IT) exhibition held in Las Vegas, USA, and said, "I met CEO Jensen Huang today."
Chairman Choi said, "Until now, SK Hynix's development speed was slightly behind NVIDIA's, so the other party (NVIDIA) requested faster development, but recently, I think we can say that SK Hynix's development speed is slightly surpassing NVIDIA's."
He added, "Now, a slight reversal has begun. We don't know when it might flip back, but the overall story about HBM is that both sides are competing head to head to accelerate development speed." This implies that SK Hynix's product development capability has significantly improved.
SK Hynix, which has virtually monopolized the supply of HBM to NVIDIA, began delivering the 5th generation HBM, HBM3E 8-stack, for the first time in the industry in March last year, and in October of the same year, started mass production of the world's first HBM3E 12-stack product. Regarding HBM supply, Chairman Choi said, "The working-level teams have already finalized everything, including this year's supply volume, and this meeting was just to confirm that."
Regarding CEO Huang's keynote speech at CES on the 6th, where he predicted the era of "physical AI," Chairman Choi said, "I exchanged opinions with CEO Huang about physical AI," and added, "We haven't decided specifically what to do, but agreed to discuss it further."
He continued, "Our country has strong manufacturing and a lot of know-how, and since he (CEO Huang) also wants to work on physical AI including digital twins and the recently announced Cosmos platform, I said it would be good to collaborate on those in the future."
Regarding CEO Huang's comment that he "didn't know Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix made graphic memory," which was interpreted as a move to check the two companies, Chairman Choi dismissed it as "not a big issue."
Chairman Choi said, "CEO Huang thinks NVIDIA is not just an AI company or a company that makes graphics processing units (GPUs), but a company that understands computing well and finds and creates the most efficient related solutions, so he might not know every solution that goes into each product." He added, "The ideas and talks CEO Huang has are currently being well implemented," and said, "I think they are making excellent solutions well."
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is visiting the SK exhibition hall at the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center in Nevada, USA, where CES 2025 is being held, on the morning of the 8th (local time). Photo by Yonhap News.
Emphasizing the strengthening of AI business competitiveness day after day, Chairman Choi said, "AI is not optional; it is driving changes across all fields," and stressed, "Whether we lead the change or follow it will determine the form of ups and downs."
He also said, "Now, the basic environment such as infrastructure and people capable of properly handling AI must be established," and diagnosed, "If we depend on other countries, it will be very difficult to pioneer our own future." He continued, "We must create what we need ourselves," and reiterated, "We must not be in a situation of dependence on others."
Chairman Choi visited the CES site again this year following 2023 and 2024. Before the briefing, he toured the SK and Samsung Electronics booths. He expressed his impression, saying, "AI has started to be integrated into everything, including robots, which is so-called physical AI, and it was an opportunity to confirm that AI has become commonplace and common sense."
At this exhibition, SK Group set up a booth under the theme "Creating a sustainable future with innovative AI technology," showcasing AI data center solutions, AI semiconductors including SK Hynix's HBM3E 16-stack under development, and SKC's glass substrate technology, called a "game changer" in semiconductor processes. Chairman Choi lifted a model of SKC's glass substrate at the SK booth and said with a smile, "I just sold it."
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