Nvidia’s Jensen Huan asked SK Hynix to bring forward supply of HBM4 chips by six months, SK’s chairman says

Published Mon, Nov 4, 2024 · 12:09 PM

SK Hynix has been leading a global race to meet an explosive demand for HBM chips that aid in the processing of vast amounts of data to train AI technology. PHOTO: REUTERS

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang had asked memory chip maker SK Hynix to bring forward by six months the supply of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips called HBM4, SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won said on Monday (Nov 4).

SK Hynix said in October that it aimed to supply the chips to customers in the second half of 2025. An SK Hynix spokesperson said on Monday that this timeline was faster than an initial target without elaborating further.

Huang’s request for faster delivery highlights expectations for strong demand for the next iterations of Nvidia’s graphic processing units used for artificial intelligence (AI), which will contain the new HBM chips. Nvidia commands more than 80 per cent of the AI chip market.

SK Hynix has been leading a global race to meet an explosive demand for HBM chips that aid in the processing of vast amounts of data to train AI technology and are crucial for Nvidia’s graphics processing units.

But rivals such as Samsung Electronics and Micron are trying to catch up in the race.

Samsung said last week that it was making progress on a supply deal with an unidentified major customer after suffering from delays on its eight-layer HBM3E chips.

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South Korea’s largest company has so far missed the lion’s share of profits stemming from surging AI-related demand.

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Nvidia’s stock market value briefly touched US$3.53 trillion, while that of Apple was US$3.52 trillion, according to data from LSEG.

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Nvidia said it was rolling out the new small language model, dubbed Nemotron-4-Mini-Hindi-4B, with four billion parameters, for firms to use in developing their own AI models.

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SK Hynix said the market is shifting from eight-layer to 12-layer HBM3Es. SK Hynix started mass production of 12-layer HBM3E in September and plans to supply the latest products to unidentified customers in the current quarter. REUTERS

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