Key Takeaways
- Samsung stock rose more than 5% on the South Korean stock exchange Wednesday following a number of reports that Nvidia is evaluating its next-generation memory chips and may use them in the future.
- A number of international media outlets reported comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang that the company is in the process of testing Samsung’s new chips.
- Demand for the chips and Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) has been at an all-time high in the last year due to their role in artificial intelligence (AI) computing.
Samsung shares (005930.KS) on the South Korean stock exchange jumped over 5% Wednesday on reports that Nvidia (NVDA) is testing Samsung’s next generation of memory chips for possible use in its future graphics processing units (GPUs).
Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said Nvidia is evaluating the chips as he discussed the importance of high bandwith memory (HBM) chips and complimented Samsung as a company during a media briefing at the tech company’s annual conference, according to reports.
“HBM memory is very complicated and the value added is very high. We are spending a lot of money on HBM,” Huang said, according to The Korea Economic Daily.
Samsung has been competing with other electronics manufacturers such as Micron (MU) and SK Hynix (000660.SK), another Korean company, for its share of the HBM market, as the chips and the AI-related computing products they can be used for have been in high demand over the last year.
Micron reports earnings after the bell Wednesday, with investors likely looking for updates on the company’s own HBM chips, as well as its future plans to supply them to Nvidia and other companies. SK Hynix announced Tuesday that it has started to mass-produce its own next-gen HBM chips, the HBM3E, with plans to supply them to customers like Nvidia later this month.
Huang did not announce an official order of the chips, but his comments appear to have been taken by investors to mean that one could be coming in the future.
Samsung stock rose 5.6% in Wednesday trading in South Korea, to 76,900 Korean won. SK Hynix stock fell 2.3% Wednesday to 156,500 won ($116.77), and Micron’s was up 0.8% to $94.75 in premarket trading in the U.S. about half an hour before the opening bell.