AMD boosts ties with Samsung, Naver during CEO's 1st Korea visit

Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong, right, poses with Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su at the Korean company's guest house in Seoul, Wednesday. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) CEO Lisa Su paid her first visit to Korea since her appointment in 2014, signaling the company’s intent to ramp up efforts to strengthen partnerships with Korean tech firms amid fierce competition with Nvidia in the global artificial intelligence (AI) chip market.

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday that Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong invited Su to the company's guest house in Seoul for a banquet.

Before their meeting, Su visited Samsung's semiconductor plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and signed a memorandum of understanding to expand strategic collaboration on next-generation AI memory and computing technologies.

Under the agreement, AMD chose Samsung as the primary supplier of HBM4 high-bandwidth memory chips for its next-generation Instinct MI455X graphics processing units (GPUs), as well as advanced dynamic random access memory solutions for sixth-generation EPYC central processing units (CPUs), codenamed “Venice.”

The two companies also agreed to discuss opportunities for a foundry partnership through which Samsung would provide foundry services for next-generation AMD products.

Jun Young-hyun, left, head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions Division, shakes hands with Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su after signing a memorandum of understanding at the Korean company's semiconductor plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

Over the past two decades, Samsung and AMD have continued to cooperate in graphic, mobile and computing technologies. In particular, Samsung served as the key supplier of HBM3E for AMD’s MI350X and MI355 GPUs.

“From industry-leading HBM4 and next-generation memory architectures to cutting-edge foundry and advanced packaging, Samsung is uniquely positioned to deliver unrivaled turnkey capabilities that support AMD’s evolving AI road map,” said Jun Young-hyun, head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions Division, which oversees the company's semiconductor business.

Su also expressed excitement about the cooperation.

“We are thrilled to expand our work with Samsung, bringing together their leadership in advanced memory with our Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs and rack-scale platforms,” she said. “Integration across the full computing stack, from silicon to system to rack, is essential to accelerating AI innovation that translates into real-world impact at scale.”

She is also scheduled to meet Thursday with Roh Tae-moon, head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Experience Division, which oversees the mobile, TV and home appliance businesses.

Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, right, introduces the company to Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su, center, at the Korean IT firm's headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday. Courtesy of Naver

Before visiting Samsung’s factory, Su stopped by Naver’s headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, to accelerate the development of sovereign AI infrastructure in Korea.

To support large-scale AI training and inference workloads across its cloud and AI services, Naver will expand its use of AMD processors while the U.S. semiconductor company will provide the Korean IT firm with access to next-generation GPUs.

The companies also plan to collaborate on research and development projects to enable new AI services and solutions for Naver’s customers.

“Our expanded collaboration with Naver Cloud brings together AMD’s leadership, AI compute platforms and open software ecosystem with Naver’s cloud and AI capabilities to enable scalable infrastructure and accelerate the next generation of AI in Korea,” Su said.

Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said the company will leverage high-performance AMD compute platforms to enhance its AI and cloud services and deliver new capabilities to customers and developers.

According to industry officials, Su will visit the office of Upstage on Thursday to meet CEO Sung Kim of the Korean AI startup and discuss strategies for semiconductor infrastructure.

That same day, she will also meet Ha Jung-woo, senior presidential secretary for AI and future planning.