SK, Nvidia form ‘long-term’ partnership for chip design, AI infrastructure

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, right, speaks during a media interview with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, left, at SK Group's headquarters in central Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

SK Group and Nvidia on Monday announced a “long-term” partnership for artificial intelligence (AI), which include co-developing chips for AI accelerators and expanding AI infrastructure including semiconductor fabs and data centers.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said their partnership involves “jointly designing AI road maps,” adding that the cooperation will extend beyond SK hynix's chip supply business to encompass a broader range of SK Group's AI initiatives, including those led by SK Telecom.

“Today we're announcing a partnership with SK that has many elements,” Huang said during a media interview at SK Group's headquarters in central Seoul. “We are securing a long-term agreement. We are co-designing our road maps together so that Nvidia's architecture and SK hynix's memory technology can advance together, allowing us to achieve the highest performance and the greatest value for the market.”

Chey also said the partnership has evolved from a memory-focused relationship centered on SK hynix into a broader collaboration spanning the entire SK Group. He said the first pillar of the partnership is building AI factories together, “encompassing not only SK hynix's semiconductor fabs but also data centers and related infrastructure.” The second is “sharing and jointly developing long-term AI research and development roadmaps.”

Under the partnership, SK hynix said it will “co-develop next-generation memory for AI factories” with Nvidia. Chey said the two companies will jointly develop next-generation memory for AI factories and apply AI to semiconductor design and manufacturing.

The announcement bears significance because it suggests SK hynix's role is evolving from a supplier that manufactures AI-specific high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to Nvidia's specifications into a partner involved in developing memory from the planning stage of Nvidia's next-generation AI platforms.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, left, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, right, and leaders of SK affiliates make a toast during a dinner at a fried chicken restaurant in southern Seoul, Sunday. Courtesy of SK Telecom

Huang said all four of Nvidia's newly unveiled computing products — the Vera Rubin supercomputer, Vera CPU, RTX Spark and Jetson Thor — “will have SK hynix inside,” stressing that “SK hynix has been Nvidia's largest memory partner and will continue to be our largest memory partner.”

SK Telecom will also team up with Nvidia to build a gigawatt-level AI infrastructure that spans across Asia. Under this plan, SK Telecom will build AI factories, which are AI-specific data centers capable of manufacturing tokens, based on Nvidia’s DSX platform. The first of these factories, which will operate in Korea in 2027, will be powered by Nvidia’s Blackwell graphics processing units and the Vera Rubin supercomputer.

“SK and Nvidia are working very closely together to make sure that the most advanced AI technology is produced from SK hynix’s fabs and used by SK Telecom,” Huang said.

The partnership is expected to span multiple years, with Huang saying the two companies will “have the opportunity to keep extending” it.

The announcement came during Huang's visit to Seoul, which began on Friday. During his stay, he met Chey on multiple occasions, further cementing the partnership between Nvidia and SK Group. On Sunday, the two had dinner at a fried chicken restaurant in Seoul's Samseong-dong, the same venue where Huang met Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun during his visit last year.

Throughout his visit, Huang has been meeting several other Korean business leaders and explored opportunities for partnerships.

The Nvidia CEO said he is cementing ties with Korean partners because the country’s scientific capabilities and expertise in semiconductor manufacturing, heavy industries and software technology are propelling it as one of the world’s leading contributors of AI.

“The United States is number one, China is number two and South Korea, I think, is number three,” he said. “These combinations really create a perfect environment for South Korea to take advantage of the AI revolution.”