Memory chip giant SK Hynix is investing $10 billion in a new AI solutions company in the U.S, tentatively named AI Company. The new firm will have full access to this new investment and will be able to deploy it as it sees fit to promote the AI industry, bolster new AI startups and developments, and encourage its own strength and competitiveness in memory chip development, the company detailed in a press release. Such investment could even mean granting easier access to key SK Hynix technologies, like High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).
“Leveraging its unparalleled chip technologies, such as HBM, the memory chipmaker will try to play a pivotal role in delivering optimized AI systems for its customers in the AI datacenter sector,” SK Hynix said in a statement.
“The company will also continue making strategic investments in and collaborating with AI firms to strengthen its competitiveness in memory chips and provide a range of AI datacenter solutions.”
The new firm will be established by restructuring the California-based SSD manufacturing subsidiary, SK hynix NAND Product Solutions Corp, also known as Solidigm. It will retain its name under AI Company, but the new parent company will serve as its AI investment arm moving forward.
Following Nvidia's lead
(Image credit: SK hynix)
One of the starkest stories of the past year in technology has been the sheer scale of investments in AI. Alongside the hundreds of billions in investment for data center projects, we’ve also seen Nvidia leveraging its vast stockpiles of cash to prop up other companies that are key to its ambitions for the AI industry and its ability to supply the hardware for it.
Nvidia invested heavily in OpenAI, in Intel, in CoreWeave, and in a range of European companies, too. It announced $1.5 in Nscale, $600 million in Quantinuum, $300 million in Black Forest Labs, $100 million in CuspAI, $20 million in PhysicsX – and the list goes on.
Although SK hynix can’t quite offer the levels of investment Nvidia is throwing around, the AI Company certainly sounds like that kind of investment vehicle. If SK hynix can help build up a range of companies developing AI software and hardware, it may encourage the industry as a whole to keep growing, ensuring that it has more customers for its memory products for years to come.
That kind of industry confidence could allow it to build up its own fabrication production without risking that capacity being wasted down the line if there’s an AI industry contraction or bubble-bursting effect.
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