Shares of South Korean chip heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix surged Thursday, a day after the two companies partnered with artificial-intelligence major OpenAI as part of the U.S. firm's Stargate initiative.
Samsung shares hit their highest since January 2021, rising over 4%, while SK Hynix stock surged more than 9% — highest since 2000.
OpenAI said in a statement that this partnership will "focus on increasing the supply of advanced memory chips essential for next-generation AI and expanding data center capacity in Korea."
The ChatGPT-maker said the two South Korean firms plan to scale up production of advanced memory chips, which are critical to power its AI models.
The announcement came as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in Seoul, and the top leaders at Samsung and SK Hynix.
OpenAI has also signed a series of agreements to explore developing next-generation AI data centers in South Korea, including with the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT, telecommunications operator SK Telecom, as well as with Samsung subsidiaries.
Earlier this month, SK Hynix announced that it was ready to mass-produce its next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, cementing its leading position in the AI value chain. HBM is a type of memory that is used in chipsets for artificial-intelligence computing, including in chips from global AI giant Nvidia — a major client of SK Hynix.