Nvidia said on July 24 it has locked down AI memory supply from SK Hynix in an agreement that could be worth $500 billion over a number of years. It landed at a San Francisco summit where roughly $950 billion in new Korean AI agreements were signed, and includes data centers expected online in 2027.
Nvidia locked down AI memory supply from SK Hynix on July 24, in an agreement that could be worth $500 billion over a number of years. The package includes large-scale data centers expected to come online in 2027, and SK Hynix affiliate SK Telecom will build a cloud business using Nvidia's Vera Rubin systems.
That deal arrived inside a much larger day. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung flew to San Francisco on July 24 for a summit with Jensen Huang, Sam Altman and the heads of Samsung, SK Group, Hyundai Motor and Naver, and roughly $950 billion in new AI agreements had been signed by the end of it.
Nvidia targets 2 gigawatts of capacity
Nvidia said it is targeting enough capacity to require 2 gigawatts of power, a figure that points to a buildout involving hundreds of thousands of graphics processing units working together. High bandwidth memory, known as HBM, sits directly next to AI chips and feeds them data fast enough to keep expensive processors from sitting idle.
Securing that memory is what the agreement does. Raj Mirpuri, Nvidia's enterprise vice president, told reporters the expansion includes a co-develop opportunity on next-generation SK Hynix AI memory, and that "this will help us secure a stable supply of HBM memory". Crypto Briefing reported that the two companies signed letters of intent to co-develop HBM4. The same outlet reported that the technology partnership behind it was first announced on June 7, 2026.
Samsung leads DRAM, SK Hynix leads HBM
Samsung Electronics leads the broader DRAM market with a 38% share, followed by SK Hynix at 29% and Micron at 22%, according to Counterpoint Research data. SK Hynix, South Korea's second most valuable company, ranked first globally in HBM revenue with a 56.4% share in the first quarter of 2026.
Analysts have been warning for months that memory demand is outpacing supply. BofA has pointed to the same dynamic as a reason memory prices could climb across DRAM, NAND and HBM products alike.
Naver and Hyundai widen the Korean push
Nvidia said on July 24 it would invest $1 billion into Naver, a Korean cloud company building data centers around Nvidia's GPUs, with the project meant to triple the facility size and provide 200 megawatts of AI computing capacity. Huang also said Nvidia would work with Hyundai Motor Group on autonomous vehicles and robotic systems.
Huang told the gathering that the SK Group partnerships alone represented more than $500 billion in combined business, though he did not detail how that figure was calculated, according to the Korea Herald.
For U.S. investors without direct access to Samsung shares, SK Hynix's new Nasdaq listing and Micron remain the two clearest ways to track the trade.
Sources: TheStreet, Crypto Briefing
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