Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, met with global big tech chief executives, including those from Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Broadcom and Meta, during a visit to the United States. Chey discussed ways to collaborate as a mid- to long-term strategic partner that goes beyond SK hynix being a simple memory supplier to jointly design and build the future of the global artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
On the 3rd, according to the SK hynix newsroom, Chey met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, Microsoft (MS) CEO Satya Nadella, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai while visiting the United States from early this month. The moves are seen as efforts to design the expansion of the AI ecosystem.
In Nov. last year, Chey said at a "CEO seminar," where the group's management gathered, "We must evolve from merely supplying high-performance memory semiconductors to becoming a provider that delivers the most efficient solutions to customers based on AI infrastructure, such as AI data centers," and added, "Through open alliances with partners, let's serve as a 'priming water' for the development of Korea's AI ecosystem."
Afterward, on the 5th (local time), Chey, invited by Huang, met the CEO at 99 Chicken, a Korean-style hof in Santa Clara, and exchanged a range of views on the AI industry.
The next day, he met Tan at Broadcom's headquarters. In particular, they exchanged in-depth views on a new design and packaging approach to simultaneously optimize next-generation HBM and AI-dedicated chips. SK hynix decided to expand the scope of cooperation so that its memory technology can be proactively reflected from Broadcom's AI chip design stage.
Chey also fleshed out plans to cooperate on data centers, a core AI infrastructure. On the 10th in Seattle, he met CEO Nadella. They discussed ways to strengthen cooperation not only in memory such as HBM, but also in areas including the construction and operation of AI data centers and cloud-based AI solutions.
On the same day in San Jose, Chey met CEO Zuckerberg to discuss long-term memory supply cooperation. They shared support plans and a development roadmap for Meta's MTIA (Meta Training and Inference Accelerator) project to develop AI accelerators, and aligned on optimizing SK hynix's HBM for the MTIA platform.
On the 11th, Chey discussed long-term AI memory supply cooperation with CEO Pichai at Google's campus in San Jose. SK Group has been expanding AI infrastructure, including deciding in Jun. last year with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build Korea's largest AI data center in Ulsan.
An SK Group official said, "As Chairman Chey meets one after another with tech leaders who lead the world, we expect it will serve as a 'priming water' not only for simple business but also for the overall development of the Korean AI industry."