SK Group chairman meets TSMC chairman in Taiwan

SEOUL, June 7 (Yonhap) — SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won had held a meeting with C.C. Wei, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), in Taiwan and they discussed bolstering cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies, SK Group said Friday.

SK Group has SK hynix Inc., the world’s second-largest maker of memory chips, under its wing. Chey and Wei agreed to enhance the two companies’ collaboration on the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, group officials said.

“Let’s lay the foundation of the AI era together to benefit the humankind,” Chey told Wei, according to a statement released by SK Group.

The meeting came about a month and a half after SK hynix signed a strategic partnership with TSMC as part of efforts to bolster its capabilities in producing premium HBM chips and advanced packaging technologies.

Under the partnership, SK hynix plans to utilize TSMC’s technologies in developing its sixth-generation HBM4 chips, set for mass production in 2025.

The two companies also plan to join hands to optimize the integration of their packaging process, CoWoS technology.

HBM chips, integral components used for AI computing, have garnered increasing attention with the rise of applications such as generative AI, exemplified by models like ChatGPT.

SK hynix supplies its fourth-generation HBM3 chips to global AI chip giant Nvidia, which has a monopolistic status in the market.

SK hynix is a key customer of Nvidia Corp., a major player in the AI semiconductor market, supplying its fourth-generation HBM3 chips almost exclusively.

Meanwhile, Chey’s meeting with Wei marked his first overseas trip since he was ordered to pay a record 1.38 trillion won (US$1.01 billion) in property division to his estranged wife Roh So-young.

“I apologize for the distress that my personal matter has caused to SK employees and stakeholders alike,” Chey said in a statement issued after the ruling.

nyway@yna.co.kr

(YONHAP NEWS)