Chair Lee Jae-yong of Samsung Electronics left for the United States on the 7th to attend the Sun Valley Conference, where global big tech chief executives gather. As competition in the artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor supply chain spreads to high bandwidth memory (HBM), foundry (contract chip manufacturing), and advanced packaging, attention is on whether he will move to expand cooperation with key customers.
Lee arrived at the Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center (SGBAC) in Gangseo District, Seoul, at about 5:08 p.m. to depart for the United States. He did not give specific answers to questions from reporters about the purpose of his trip and plans to meet global big tech CEOs. When asked about the semiconductor outlook, he looked at the camera and said, "Thank you for your hard work."
Lee is expected to attend the Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. The Sun Valley Conference is a private event hosted every July since 1983 by the U.S. investment bank Allen & Company. It is considered a venue where executives and investors from the global IT and media industries discuss business cooperation, investment, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
This year's event is expected to draw major global big tech figures, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. With investment in Generative AI expanding, AI infrastructure and semiconductor supply chains are likely to be key agenda items at this year's Sun Valley Conference.
In business circles, attention is on the possibility that Lee will discuss next-generation HBM supply, foundry orders, and advanced packaging cooperation with global big tech executives at the Sun Valley Conference. Whether cooperation will expand with corporations such as Google, Meta, and Amazon that develop their own AI chips is also of interest.
In the foundry sector, securing orders for next-generation AI Semiconductor chips is seen as the key variable. Samsung Electronics is pushing to expand mass production on its advanced 2-nanometer process. With TSMC facing capacity strains, some expect Samsung Electronics could emerge as an alternative manufacturing partner for big tech.
The expansion of investment in AI servers and data centers could also be an opportunity for Samsung's electronic components affiliates. High-value parts such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics' multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC) and flip-chip ball grid array (FC-BGA) are seeing rising demand as core components for AI servers.
Lee has built a global management network by attending the Sun Valley Conference since 2002, when he was an executive director at Samsung Electronics. Although he could not attend for a time due to legal risk, he returned to the event last year, and this year he is set to continue on-site global management by completing the Sun Valley schedule.
Samsung Electronics also announced its preliminary results for the second quarter of this year on the same day. On a consolidation basis, it posted revenue of 171 trillion won and operating profit of 89.4 trillion won, marking its largest-ever quarterly results. Increased memory demand and firm prices driven by expanding investment in AI data centers are seen as having propelled the results.
In the industry, there is talk that additional discussions on customer cooperation may follow after Lee's U.S. trip. As the Sun Valley Conference is more about building trust among chief executives and laying the groundwork for long-term cooperation than signing official contracts, high-level exchanges over the AI Semiconductor supply chain appear likely.