Samsung Electronics wins $200 billion Broadcom AI chip partnership, boosting foundry push
SEOUL, July 25 (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics said on Saturday it had struck a deal with U.S. chip designer Broadcom to expand cooperation in memory chips, contract chip manufacturing and advanced packaging, which is projected to exceed $200 billion by 2030.
Winning long-term manufacturing commitments from Broadcom, one of the world’s leading custom AI chip designers, could increase utilization of Samsung’s advanced manufacturing facilities to get ahead in the race to supply AI chips.
“The expanded collaboration reflects Samsung’s focus on supporting customers with end-to-end semiconductor technologies across increasingly diverse AI and high-performance computing applications,” the company said in a statement. he said.
Connecting
The merger comes as demand for custom chip design and manufacturing partnerships grows as global tech companies increasingly develop their own dedicated AI accelerators rather than relying solely on general-purpose graphics processors.
The two companies’ memorandum of understanding underscores Samsung’s efforts to strengthen its position in AI semiconductors by expanding its long-term ties with Broadcom amid growing demand for dedicated AI processors.
The next five-year collaboration will combine Broadcom’s expertise in designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or chips for specific tasks, with Samsung’s manufacturing capabilities.
Partnership
Samsung said the agreement enables Broadcom’s next-generation communications chips designed for high-speed data transfer to be made with Samsung’s sub-2-nanometer process technology.
The duo will also collaborate on next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) products.
The partnership could help strengthen Samsung’s foundry business as it aims to close the gap with industry leader TSMC by attracting the attention of big tech customers.
Last month, co-CEO and chip division president Jun Young-hyun said he discussed next-generation foundry collaboration, including future HBM4E and HBM5 memory products, with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang.
Samsung said it expects to receive orders for more advanced 2-nanometer foundries in the near term, following talks with major technology companies this year. Last year it won a $16.5 billion contract to produce logic chips for EV maker Tesla.
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
