SK Group to meet Tesla and SpaceX leadership to pursue AI-infrastructure and memory partnerships

SK Group’s outreach to Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI signals a strategic push to embed its HBM and advanced packaging into the U.S. AI infrastructure backbone. This move will catalyze co-design paradigms between memory and compute, pressuring rivals like Samsung and Micron to accelerate CoWoS-compatible HBM3E ramp-up and potentially redefine AI server DRAM specs. However, under tightening U.S. CHIPS Act restrictions and export controls, SK Hynix’s China-based operations—including assembly/test nodes in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, China—face heightened compliance overhead, likely inflating supply chain redundancy costs by over 15%. Samsung may counter by deepening vertical integration with NVIDIA, while Western Digital could fast-track custom SSD deals with Microsoft Azure. Within 18 months, if SK secures a foothold in Tesla’s Dojo supercomputing ecosystem, it would become the only non-U.S. memory supplier deeply integrated into America’s domestic AI hardware loop—yet at the cost of navigating elevated geopolitical scrutiny that effectively erects a ‘technical entry barrier.’