SK Group

AI Infrastructure · Semiconductors · Cloud Computing

Partnership

Nvidia and SK Group forge $500B AI factory and HBM memory pact

The deal locks Nvidia into buying memory from a supplier while that same supplier commits to buying Nvidia's chips.

• SK Group and Nvidia signed letters of intent for a strategic partnership valued at more than $500 billion, spanning AI factory construction and long-term AI memory supply.
• SK Group's telecom arm SK Telecom will build AI data centers in Korea, while its chipmaker SK hynix is the world's largest supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AI accelerators.
• SK Telecom will construct a 2-gigawatt NVIDIA Vera Rubin DSX AI Factory in Korea, running on SK hynix's HBM4 memory, with the first phase online in 2027.
• Nvidia and SK hynix will codevelop and optimize next-generation HBM memory stacks, giving Nvidia a secured long-term supply pipeline for its Vera Rubin platform and future chip architectures.
• The announcement came alongside a separate $1 billion Nvidia investment in Naver to expand a Korean AI data center, part of $950 billion in AI deals unveiled at the San Francisco summit involving Samsung, Microsoft, Anthropic and AWS.
• Critics have called Nvidia's pattern of investing in firms that then buy its hardware a form of circular financing, a structure also seen in its deals with OpenAI and neocloud operators.
• By binding its top memory supplier into a joint-development pact, Nvidia hedges against the HBM shortage that has become the biggest bottleneck to scaling AI data centers.