Nvidia unveils partnerships with South Korean tech leaders including SK Group - The American Bazaar

NVIDIA has announced a series of strategic partnerships with leading South Korean technology companies, including SK Hynix and SK Telecom, to secure critical chip supplies for its AI ambitions. These ... Read original →

Jensen Huang’s Korea blitz is a tactical move to breach the looming 'memory wall' in AI scaling. SK Hynix’s push into 3nm-class HBM4 with increased EUV layers will accelerate data centers toward INT4 architectures, yet its 2030 capacity target remains insufficient for Blackwell Ultra demands—highlighting a systemic shortage in advanced packaging and high-bandwidth memory. Geopolitically, U.S. export controls are forcing NVIDIA to diversify away from Taiwan, China, making South Korea a linchpin despite its inadequate power grid and talent pipeline for gigawatt-scale AI clouds by 2027. Competitors like AMD (with TSMC’s CoWoS) and Intel (betting on European fabs for Gaudi3) are racing to lock alternative supply. Over the next 18 months, the HBM5 standards battle and Korean state subsidies will be decisive; failure by SK Hynix to mass-produce 12-layer HBM4 by end-2026 could cripple NVIDIA’s robotics and autonomous mobility roadmap.