Nvidia and its CEO Jensen Huang are arguably the face of the AI boom, with the company's chips being key to training the AI models that power today's large language models. Investors are listening to Huang's every word for guidance on where AI is going—and moving shares in entirely different companies.
Shares in Samsung Electronics, the world's largest memory chipmaker, rose around 2.8% in Wednesday trading in South Korea, a day after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave tentative support to the Korean chipmaker's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips.
On Tuesday, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taiwan that Nvidia was studying HBM chips made by Samsung and U.S. chipmaker Micron Technologies, and noted that Samsung's chips hadn't failed Nvidia's tests.
Samsung has lagged its peers, like its Korean competitor SK Hynix, when it comes to AI. SK Hynix is currently Nvidia's primary supplier of HBM chips. These chips boast lower power consumption and faster processing speeds, making them more suited to handling the massive amounts of data used for AI.
Samsung is now trying to narrow the gap with plans to increase its supply of HBM chips this year. The Korean company replaced the head of its semiconductor division in May with a long-time memory chip veteran.
In April, Samsung reportedly signed a deal to supply HBMs to Nvidia competitor Advanced Micro Devices.
Nvidia hasn't fully endorsed Samsung's work. On Tuesday, Huang noted Samsung's product needed more engineering work. “I want it to be done by yesterday. But it’s not done yet," he said. Yet he pushed back against a recent Reuters report that suggested Samsung's HBM chips had failed Nvidia's standards for heat and power consumption. “There’s no story there,” Huang said.
Samsung, at the time, said that "claims of failing due to heat and power consumption are not true."
Strong demand for Nvidia’s GPUs to run AI applications has been good for SK Hynix. The company said in early May that it has almost sold through its 2025 volume for HBMs.
SK Hynix's shares are up 79% over the past 12 months. Samsung's are up just 9% over the same period.
