The top of AI computing big Nvidia requested South Korea’s SK hynix to hurry up supply of newer, extra superior HBM4 chips by six months, the pinnacle of SK Group mentioned Monday.
Nvidia’s chief govt, Jensen Huang, made the request amid a worldwide scarcity of essential superior chips, which SK has pledged to work on with fellow market chief TSMC of Taiwan.
SK hynix, the world’s second-largest reminiscence chip maker, is racing to satisfy explosive demand for the HBM chips which might be used to course of huge quantities of knowledge to coach AI, together with from Nvidia, which dominates the market.
“The current pace of HBM memory technology development and product launches is impressive, but AI still requires higher-performance memory,” mentioned Huang by video hyperlink at an AI summit in Seoul.
The agency mentioned final month that it was on track to ship the 12-layer HBM4 chips by the second half of 2025.
SK hynix additionally mentioned Monday that it might ship samples of the primary ever 16-layer HBM3E chips by early 2025, because it seeks to bolster its rising AI chip dominance.
“Nvidia is demanding more HBM as it releases better chip versions every year,” Chey Tae-won, CEO of SK Group mentioned.
He mentioned it was a “happy challenge” which saved his firm busy.
The corporate mentioned it was mass-producing the world’s first 12-layer HBM3E product in September, and now goals to ship samples to shoppers of the newer, extra superior merchandise in a short time.
The extra layers add extra bandwidth pace, energy effectivity and enhance the whole capability of the chips.
“SK hynix has been preparing for various ‘world first’ products by being the first in the industry to develop and start volume shipping,” SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung mentioned.
“SK hynix has been developing 48GB 16-high HBM3E in a bid to secure technological stability and plans to provide samples to customers early next year,” Kwak added.
In 2013, SK hynix launched the primary high-bandwidth reminiscence chips — cutting-edge semiconductors that allow quicker information processing and the extra advanced duties of generative AI.
Rival Samsung has been lagging behind SK hynix in relation to HBM chips, and the market capitalisation hole between Samsung Electronics and SK hynix reached its narrowest stage in 13 years in October.
SK hynix’s shares rose 6.48 % on Monday.
