Kyung Gye-hyun and Kwak No-jung Likely to Meet MS CEO... Focus on HBM Supply Discussions

Attending 'MS CEO Summit' from May 14
Presidents Jo Joo-wan and Yoo Young-sang also heading to the US
MS large-scale data center requires HBM

Top executives of major Korean companies are expected to meet Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft (MS), in the United States next month to discuss cooperation plans on artificial intelligence (AI).

Kyung Kye-hyun, President of Samsung Electronics DS Division. Photo by Jin-Hyung Kang aymsdream@

According to industry sources on the 22nd, Kwak No-jung, President of SK Hynix, Cho Ju-wan, President of LG Electronics, and Yoo Sang-young, President of SK Telecom, will attend the ‘MS CEO Summit 2024’ held at MS headquarters in the U.S. for three days starting from the 14th of next month. Kyung Kye-hyun, President and Head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions (DS) Division, has not yet decided whether to attend, but it is reported that the possibility is high.

The event is known to be personally overseen by CEO Nadella, who meets with key figures. Accordingly, it is anticipated that top executives of Korean companies will also be given time to meet with CEO Nadella. MS recently launched the AI service ‘Copilot’ and has entered the AI business. Against this backdrop, the industry is paying close attention to whether cooperation with Korean companies can be concretized through this event.

Kwak No-jeong, President and CEO of SK Hynix. Photo by SK Hynix

Jo Joo-wan, President of LG Electronics. Photo by LG Electronics

Particularly, attention is focused on whether Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will discuss the supply of memory semiconductors. MS operates large-scale data centers and requires high-performance memory semiconductors such as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). If HBM supply to MS is finalized, it could impact the HBM market, where recent price adjustments are being considered, drawing close industry scrutiny. The HBM market is showing signs of overheating as the number of manufacturers and suppliers increases. Meanwhile, demand also shows signs of contraction, strengthening the forecast that HBM prices will fall from current levels. Once Samsung Electronics’ HBM3E 12-layer product, which has only been released as a sample, begins mass production, supply will increase further. Additionally, Nvidia is expanding HBM supply from SK Hynix to other companies such as U.S.-based Micron, which is expected to reduce the demand volume allocated to each company and lead to a decline in selling prices. Besides HBM, Samsung Electronics is also likely to discuss cooperation with Google regarding the AI inference chip ‘Maha’.

LG Electronics is expected to discuss ways to integrate MS’s AI platform into its home appliances. LG Electronics is likely to emphasize to MS that it holds a significant share in the global home appliance market, selling 100 million units annually worldwide, and exchange opinions on market linkage and other matters. SK Telecom may consider collaboration with MS related to large language models (LLM) concerning its expanding AI assistant Aider.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.