Signal Korea's 'San Francisco AI Declaration' anchors a cluster of major AI chip supply-chain deals

Summary

At the San Francisco AI Summit, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung unveiled a 'San Francisco AI Declaration' positioning Korea as a global AI production hub and core supply-chain node, alongside roughly $950 billion in newly announced AI initiatives and investment. The package includes a reported $500 billion deal between Nvidia and SK hynix covering AI data centers and next-generation memory. Separately, Samsung Electronics used its Q2 earnings call to project HBM4 revenue would more than triple quarter-on-quarter in Q3 and forecast a foundry recovery driven by rising 2nm AI chip orders, while confirming a roughly $200 billion memorandum of understanding with US chipmaker Broadcom on next-generation AI infrastructure chip supply and foundry cooperation. Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT also signed an MOU with AMD to strengthen the domestic AI semiconductor ecosystem, under which AMD will establish an 'AI Center of Excellence' in Korea and collaborate with local companies, universities and research institutes on software development and technology validation. The plan envisions combining AMD's CPUs and GPUs with Korean firms' NPUs into a heterogeneous computing infrastructure intended to help Korean semiconductor companies enter global supply chains.