Chairman Chey Tae-won Visits GTC for the First Time, Signs HBM4 with Jensen Huang... "Solid Alliance" [GTC 2026]

Chairman Chey Attends Jensen Huang's Keynote Speech
President Kwak Nojeong Also Present, Separate Meeting Expected
"Plan to Stabilize DRAM Prices to Be Announced Soon"

On March 16 (local time), SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won attended the 'GTC 2026' event at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, and demonstrated a strong artificial intelligence (AI) alliance with Nvidia. Chey, who watched Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote speech from the VIP section, later accompanied him to the SK Hynix exhibition booth, further highlighting the AI semiconductor partnership between the two companies.

According to the business community, Chey appeared at the venue for Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote speech at around 11 a.m. that day. Jeff Fisher, Senior Vice President and widely regarded as the second-in-command at Nvidia, and Kwak Nohjung, President of SK Hynix, were also present, listening to the keynote alongside Chey and Huang.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang are visiting the SK Hynix exhibition booth at 'GTC 2026' held at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, USA, on the 16th (local time). Photo by Joint Press Team

This marks the first time that a chairman from one of Korea's four major conglomerates has attended a technology conference hosted solely by Nvidia. Industry insiders believe that with Samsung Electronics taking the lead as the world’s first to ship sixth-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM4), Chey is now stepping forward to tighten SK Hynix’s grip on the HBM leadership. After the keynote, Chey and Huang were seen visiting the SK Hynix exhibition booth and leaving their signatures. This was the first time that CEO Huang had signed at the GTC SK Hynix booth.

During the event, Chey is expected to hold a separate meeting with CEO Huang, accompanied by President Kwak and other key executives from the semiconductor business. This comes just a month after their "Chimaek (chicken and beer) meeting" in Silicon Valley early last month. The main agenda is anticipated to be the supply of SK Hynix’s next-generation semiconductor products, including HBM4. Speaking with reporters at the event, Chey stated, "Nvidia is one of our largest customers. I hope the meeting happens," adding, "We also plan to meet with other big tech companies."

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is speaking with the press at the 'GTC 2026' event held on the 16th (local time) at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, USA. Photo by Joint Press Corps

SK Hynix has focused this year on optimizing its products to meet Nvidia's requirements in the HBM4 market, which is considered the most competitive battleground for 'semiconductor giants.' Although SK Hynix has been slower to supply than Samsung Electronics, industry experts note that SK Hynix has a strong foundation of trust and mass production experience built over years with Nvidia. The ongoing global memory shortage is also seen as a positive factor for SK Hynix’s performance.

Chey cited 'wafer shortages' as the primary cause of the worldwide memory shortage. Speaking with the press at the event, he said, "It takes at least four to five years of lead time to expand wafer production capacity," suggesting that so-called "chipflation" could persist until 2030. He added, "Currently, there is a shortage of over 20% in overall wafer supply, so we need to increase supply, but there are limits due to issues such as electricity, water, and other resources." However, he also revealed, "The CEO will soon announce a new plan to stabilize DRAM prices."

Exhibition of Nvidia's Vera Rubin 200 hardware and SK Hynix's HBM4 and SOCAMM2 installed on it. SK Hynix

Chey also commented on the possibility of an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) listing. He said, "We are considering an ADR listing," adding, "It would allow us to be exposed not only to Korean shareholders but also to U.S. and global investors, making us a more global company." An ADR is an alternative security issued for trading a company's shares on U.S. stock exchanges, and it is seen as an opportunity for SK Hynix's corporate value to be reassessed at a level comparable to competitors like Micron. Following the news, SK Hynix's stock price rose 3.70% during the session on the domestic stock market, reclaiming the so-called "One Million Hynix" mark.

At this event, SK Hynix plans to showcase a wide range of memory products designed to minimize data bottlenecks and maximize performance in AI training and inference. The highlight of the exhibition is the "Nvidia Collaboration Zone," which will feature HBM4, HBM3E (5th generation), SOCAMM2 (server low-power memory module), water-cooled enterprise solid-state drives (eSSD), and Nvidia's supercomputer 'DGX Spark' equipped with LPDDR5X.

The "Product Portfolio Zone" will showcase high-capacity server DRAM modules, next-generation mobile DRAM 'LPDDR6,' graphics DRAM 'GDDR7,' and automotive memory solutions, covering a full range of products aimed at the AI era.

NVIDIA GTC 2026 SK hynix Exhibition Hall Exterior. SK hynix

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