Samsung, SK and Naver leaders are slated to sit down with Nvidia chief Jensen Huang in the United States this week, marking a rare gathering of senior AI executives from the sector’s most influential firms.
Roundtable slated for Silicon Valley
According to sources, the meeting will likely take place near Silicon Valley on Friday, with the exact venue still under wraps. Participants are expected to include Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee, SK Group chairman Chey Tae‑won, and Naver founder and board chair Lee Hae‑jin. OpenAI chief Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have been mentioned as possible attendees, though their presence has not been confirmed.
If the schedule holds, the roundtable will bring together executives from memory manufacturers, semiconductor fabs, AI‑processor designers and generative‑AI service providers. Observers describe the convening as unprecedented, given the breadth of companies represented across the AI value chain.
Korean firms’ role in Nvidia’s plans
The meeting follows a recent trip by Huang to Korea, where he held talks with senior figures from Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor Group, LG and Naver. Those discussions highlighted Nvidia’s expanding collaborations with Korean firms, showing the country’s growing role in the global AI ecosystem.
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix supply high‑bandwidth memory chips that power Nvidia’s GPUs. Both companies are slated to provide HBM4 for Nvidia’s upcoming Vera Rubin AI accelerator, slated for release later this year. The same memory is also earmarked for OpenAI’s custom AI chips, and the two firms previously signed agreements to furnish high‑performance memory for the Stargate AI infrastructure project.
Beyond memory, the partnership extends to semiconductor manufacturing. Samsung’s foundry business is already fabricating AI processors for Nvidia’s ecosystem, and Anthropic is reportedly in talks to use Samsung’s 2‑nanometer process technology for its own AI chips.
In a broader sense, the Korean supply chain has become a cornerstone for many of the world’s leading AI models, offering both capacity and speed that are hard to match elsewhere. This reliance makes the upcoming dialogue especially significant for the future of hardware‑centric AI development.
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Naver’s AI Factory and market concerns
Naver is expected to discuss its “AI Factory” initiative during the meeting. The program blends AI models with cloud software and physical infrastructure, including GPU servers, data centers and cooling systems, to enable large‑scale AI computing. By integrating hardware and software, Naver hopes to create a more streamlined environment for AI workloads.
The gathering comes at a time when investors are questioning whether spending on AI infrastructure is nearing its peak. Semiconductor stocks have slipped from recent highs, with shares of Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Micron Technology and Nvidia all seeing notable declines.
Despite the market pullback, most industry participants still anticipate strong demand for AI memory chips through next year. Continued investment in AI infrastructure is expected to sustain the need for high‑performance memory and processing components over the coming years.
From a strategic viewpoint, the meeting could serve as a barometer for how tightly intertwined the AI hardware supply chain will become with the software side of the business. If Korean firms secure a larger slice of Nvidia’s upcoming projects, it may reinforce their position as indispensable partners in the AI race.
The agenda has not been disclosed, but the presence of top executives from Samsung, SK and Naver suggests discussions will cover everything from chip design roadmaps to joint research initiatives. Observers will watch closely for any signals that could affect upcoming product releases or shape the next wave of AI hardware.
They will also discuss Samsung Biologics acquisition and its impact on AI development.
