A Month After 'Chimaek Meeting' With Jensen Huang in the US... SK Chairman Chey Tae-won to Attend GTC

First GTC Attendance Following Last Year’s CES

Aggressive Moves Ahead of HBM4 Supply

Semiconductors, Data Centers, and More on the Agenda

Tae-won Chey, Chairman of SK Group, is expected to attend Nvidia's annual technology conference, 'GTC 2026,' which will be held in the United States on March 16 (local time). He is anticipated to meet with Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, to continue discussions on semiconductor cooperation, including the sixth-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM4).

According to the industry on March 5, Chairman Chey plans to participate in GTC 2026, which will be held from March 16 to 19 in San Jose, California. This marks the first time that Chairman Chey will attend a GTC event.

GTC is Nvidia's annual technology conference, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors and computing, and covers the latest technologies and ecosystems in various industries such as robotics and autonomous driving. At this year’s event, CEO Huang is expected to unveil a wide range of products, including next-generation AI accelerators like 'Vera Rubin,' PC chips, and digital twins. The event also serves as a venue where executives from major semiconductor companies and big tech representatives gather to discuss AI supply chain collaboration.

On the 5th of last month (local time), at the Korean-style pub '99 Chicken' in Santa Clara, California, USA, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, is showcasing his new book 'Super Momentum' during a dinner meeting with Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group. Photo by Yonhap News.

Particular attention is being paid to whether the collaboration landscape among memory companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix will change, as HBM4 is expected to be adopted in the Vera Rubin, which is scheduled for release in the second half of this year. It is known that Nvidia has allocated about two-thirds of the HBM4 volume for this year's Vera Rubin to SK hynix, while Samsung Electronics is reported to have been the first to begin supplying. SK hynix is currently mass-producing customer-requested samples of HBM4 and is optimizing its performance. Expectations for both companies to supply HBM for Nvidia’s next-generation graphics processing units (GPU) are also rising as Nvidia is set to unveil these new GPUs.

Chairman Chey and CEO Huang are expected to meet during the event to discuss expanding HBM supply and cooperation on next-generation AI semiconductors. SK hynix maintains its position as the primary supplier of HBM to Nvidia, and the two companies are working closely together. Chairman Chey has continued semiconductor cooperation discussions with CEO Huang through several recent meetings. On the 5th of last month, Chairman Chey visited the United States and reportedly discussed memory supply and AI data center construction with CEO Huang over a 'chimaek' (chicken and beer) meeting. CEO Huang is said to have requested 'top-performance HBM4' from SK hynix, and the industry expects formal supply to commence soon.

Chairman Chey has consistently engaged with Nvidia, including personally attending 'CES 2025' held in Las Vegas last January to meet with CEO Huang. Although he did not attend 'CES 2026' this January, it is known that SK hynix CEO Kwak Nojeong and other executives held cooperation discussions with Nvidia representatives.

The industry expects that this attendance at GTC could serve as a catalyst for SK Group and Nvidia to expand their cooperation from memory supply to the fields of AI data centers and infrastructure. SK Group is accelerating its expansion of AI infrastructure businesses, not only in semiconductors but also in data centers, power, and energy. Centered around SK Telecom, the group is promoting global AI data center projects, and in the US, it is establishing AI investment and solution companies to seek broader collaboration with big tech firms.

SK hynix plans to showcase its AI memory technologies and solutions in collaboration with Nvidia at this year’s GTC. The company is expected to display actual AI memory products such as HBM4 and HBM3E at its booth, along with Nvidia’s AI systems equipped with these products. Both Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are scheduled to take the stage at the event to present the future direction of next-generation AI memory, including HBM4.

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