Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group (034730.KS) Chairman Chey Tae-won will meet again with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in New York later this month. As the three figures who lead the global artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market gather in one place, market attention is focused on whether cooperation centered on the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) supply chain will expand.<\/p>\n
According to business circles on the 4th, the two chairmen are scheduled to attend the annual gala dinner of the Korea Society, a nonprofit organization promoting U.S.-Korea friendship, in New York on the 28th (local time) to meet with CEO Huang. The event is the Van Fleet Award ceremony, which the Korea Society presents to individuals who have contributed to strengthening U.S.-Korea relations, and Huang has been selected as this year’s recipient.<\/p>\n
This marks the first time the three have met at an official event since President Lee Jae-myung’s visit to the United States in July, approximately two months ago. Given that Samsung Electronics and SK are key partners in the U.S.-Korea technology cooperation that underpins Huang’s selection for the award, the two chairmen have reportedly decided to attend the ceremony in person to offer their congratulations.<\/p>\n
The event holds special significance for Chairman Lee. His late father, former Chairman Lee Kun-hee, received the Van Fleet Award in 2006, making this a second-generation award connection. Chairman Chey is also reported to have decided to attend in light of the fact that both his late father, former SK Chairman Chey Jong-hyun, and he himself have received the Van Fleet Award.<\/p>\n
Chairman Lee decided to attend as part of his sales-oriented management approach of expanding connections with global Big Tech, having previously attended the Sun Valley Conference\u2014dubbed the “billionaires’ summer camp”\u2014in July. The possibility of a series of meetings with major Big Tech executives during his U.S. visit has also been raised.<\/p>\n
Chairman Chey is reportedly planning to attend the dinner in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly schedule in New York later this month, before traveling to Mexico to inspect production and supply chain sites in North America.<\/p>\n
HBM4 Supply Leadership and Cooperation on the Agenda<\/p>\n
With the two chairmen meeting CEO Huang again, discussions are expected to go beyond simple congratulations to delve into expanding business cooperation in areas both sides have been pursuing, including AI memory, physical AI, and robotics. During his visit to South Korea in June, Huang expressed his intention to expand partnerships with Samsung Electronics and SK in these fields.<\/p>\n
In particular, HBM4\u2014which will be featured in Nvidia’s next-generation AI accelerator “Vera Rubin” set for release soon\u2014and plans to expand supply of future next-generation memory products are highly likely to be key agenda items. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix (000660.KS) are strengthening cooperation with Big Tech while accelerating DRAM production expansion to secure leadership in HBM4 supply.<\/p>\n
According to Counterpoint Research, in the second quarter of this year, when HBM4 shipments began, Samsung Electronics recorded a 33% share of the HBM market, significantly narrowing the gap with leader SK Hynix (50%) compared to the previous quarter. As competition between the two companies intensifies, their respective relationships with Nvidia are expected to be a decisive variable in shaping the future market landscape.<\/p>\n
Potential Discussions on Local Issues Amid U.S. Investment Pressure<\/p>\n
Business circles are also noting that this meeting comes as the U.S. government intensifies pressure on South Korean semiconductor companies for additional investment in America and construction of local factories. With Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix already building large-scale advanced fabs and back-end processing facilities in the United States, the possibility that the two chairmen will naturally meet with senior U.S. political and business figures attending the event to discuss local issues such as subsidies has also been raised.<\/p>\n
The Van Fleet Award was established in 1995 to honor General James Van Fleet, who served as commander of the U.S. Eighth Army during the Korean War and founded the Korea Society in 1957. Past recipients include former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Hyundai Motor Group Honorary Chairman Chung Mong-koo, POSCO Chairman Chang In-hwa, and the group BTS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group (034730.KS) Chairman Chey Tae-won will meet again with Nvidia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[2589,4287,11825,3741,1133,2295,276,241,240,275,72597],"class_list":["post-142697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk-hynix","tag-chey-tae-won","tag-hbm4","tag-jensen-huang","tag-korea-society","tag-lee-jae-yong","tag-nvidia","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk","tag-sk-group","tag-sk-hynix","tag-van-fleet-award"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}