Daily: Korea to buy GPUs; SMIC's continued growth; ASE in Malaysia
3 min read.
Pretty quiet day in semiconductor world today. Highlights
Korea to buy GPUs. Korea looks to purchase 10,000 GPUs within the year for a national AI computing centre.
SMIC’s continued growth. SMIC expected to continue growing to meet domestic demand, despite the U.S.-China tech competition.
ASE in Malaysia. Taiwanese company, ASE, which is also the world’s largest chip packaging and testing company, opens overseas plants in Malaysia. There’s an old joke from Trump’s first term, “Who won the U.S.-China trade war? Vietnam.” With the U.S.-China tech competition well underway, smaller and middle powers may find wins if they can angle themselves strategically.
Thanks for reading.
1. Policy and Geopolitics
1.1
Reuters (02/17): South Korea aims to secure 10,000 GPUs for national AI computing centre
South Korea on Monday announced plans to secure 10,000 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) within this year in a bid to keep pace as the global AI race escalates.
"As competition for dominance in the AI industry intensifies, the competitive landscape is shifting from battles between companies to a full-scale rivalry between national innovation ecosystems," South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-mok said in a statement.
Choi said that the government aims to secure the 10,000 GPUs through public-private cooperation to help the country launch services at its national AI computing centre early.
1.2
TrendForce (02/18): SMIC Likely to Continue Expanding Capacity Amid U.S.-China Tech Tensions
Chinese semiconductor foundries continue to expand production capacity under the pressures of the ongoing U.S.-China technology conflict, aiming to meet domestic demand. According to a recent TechNews report, a plot of land adjacent to Semiconductor Manufacturing Beijing Corporation has been listed for land-use rights transfer, with market speculation suggesting that this move is part of SMIC’s preparations for future capacity expansion.
Semiconductor Manufacturing Beijing Corporation is backed by SMIC and China’s National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase II, focusing on the production of 12-inch semiconductor wafers and IC packaging solutions.
2. Economy, Finance, and Business
2.1
Nikkei (02/18): Top chip packager ASE opens largest overseas plants in Malaysia
ASE Technology Holding on Tuesday opened what is set to become its largest overseas operations in Penang, Malaysia, as the world's biggest chip packaging and testing provider looks for its next growth drivers in robotics and AI amid an ongoing supply chain reshuffle.
ASE, based in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, said it will double its workforce in Malaysia to about 6,000 as it more than triples its factory space from 1 million sq. feet to 3.4 million sq. feet in the coming years.
2.2
Reuters (02/18): Samsung Electronics nominates chip execs as new board members
Samsung Electronics on Tuesday nominated its chip business chief Jun Young-hyun and Chief Technology Officer Song Jai-hyuk to join its board, as the tech giant looks to boost competitiveness in its struggling semiconductor business.
The South Korean company also said in a regulatory filing it had nominated Seoul National University Professor Lee Hyuk-jae as an outside director. Lee, a chip expert, is head of Seoul National University's semiconductor research centre.
2.3
Reuters (02/18): Samsung Electronics to cancel $2.11 billion worth of own shares
Samsung Electronics has decided to cancel 3.05 trillion won ($2.11 billion) worth of its own shares that it had acquired previously, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Samsung also said in a separate regulatory filing it would acquire 2.7 trillion won worth of its own common shares, and 304 billion won worth of other shares, between Feb 19 and May 16 this year to raise shareholder value and benefit its employees.
3. Technology
3.1
Tom’s Hardware (02/17): Nvidia, SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron reportedly working on new SOCAMM memory standard for AI PCs
Nvidia is reportedly teaming up with memory manufacturers SK hynix, Micron and Samsung to create a new memory standard that's both small in size, but big on performance, according to a report via SEDaily.
The new standard, named System On Chip Advanced Memory Module (SOCAMM) is in the works with all three large scale memory makers. The report claims (via machine translation): 'Nvidia and memory companies are currently exchanging SOCAMM prototypes to conduct performance tests'. We could also be seeing the new standard sooner rather than later, adding that 'mass production could be possible as early as later this year'.
The SOCAMM module is suspected to be put into use for Nvidia's next-generation successor to Nvidia's Project Digits AI computers, announced at CES 2025. SOCAMM is expected to be a sizable upgrade over Low-Power Compression Attached Memory Modules (LPCAMM), and traditional DRAM, thanks to several factors.
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