NVIDIA announced plans to collaborate with the South Korean government and major companies to deploy up to 260,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) in South Korea to establish a large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) manufacturing factory. The plan will involve the South Korean government and major industry giants such as Samsung Electronics. Companies including Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and Naver Cloud will each establish AI computing centers powered by NVIDIA's latest Blackwell GPUs.
NVIDIA and Samsung will join forces to build an AI factory. Samsung will procure over 50,000 NVIDIA GPUs to construct its AI chip cluster. Samsung announced that it will jointly develop HBM4 and SOCAMM2 technologies with NVIDIA.
According to informed sources, NVIDIA plans to invest up to $1 billion in AI startup Poolside. This investment would quadruple Poolside's valuation compared to last year. Currently, Poolside is in discussions to raise $2 billion at a valuation of $12 billion (excluding funds already raised).
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang expressed hope that both Korean companies would succeed in the HBM4 field. He mentioned that the Chinese market presents a $50 billion opportunity this year, which will grow to hundreds of billions by the end of the decade. Industries worth $100 trillion will benefit from physical AI. Rubin is expected to begin production in the second half of next year.
Chip stocks were mixed. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 0.18%, with Marvell Technology up over 5%, ARM up more than 2%, Qualcomm up over 2%, and Texas Instruments up more than 1%. On the decline side, Lam Research fell over 2%, Broadcom dropped over 1%, and ASML declined more than 1%.
Intel is in acquisition discussions with AI chip manufacturer SambaNova. It is understood that SambaNova previously worked with banks to assess interest from potential buyers. Reports indicate that any deal might value SambaNova below the $5 billion valuation it achieved in a 2021 funding round. Currently, negotiations are in the early stages, and it is uncertain whether an agreement will be reached.
