NVIDIA CEO met with Samsung in 2018 to propose jointly-developed HBM, foundry switch from TSMC

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang reportedly secretly met with Samsung Electronics back in 2018 to discuss co-development of HBM, a possible switch from TSMC to Samsung Foundry, and to work together closely on CUDA.

According to a semiconductor industry source, CEO Jensen Huang secretly visited Samsung Electronics in 2018 and made three proposals. The first was to expand the HBM development that Samsung and NVIDIA were jointly pursuing to a higher level. The second was to jointly develop foundry technology beyond 8nm. The third involved jointly fostering NVIDIA's software ecosystem, CUDA.

The source, who requested anonymity, stated: "at the time, Samsung rejected all three of CEO Jensen Huang's proposals". They added that "CEO Jensen Huang lamented, 'There is no one at Samsung to discuss long-term strategy with me'". At the time, Jensen wasn't able to meet with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong. Samsung as a whole was significantly subdued due to the prosecution's investigation and trial against Chairman Lee, which had fully commenced in 2027, and that it's understood long-term decision-making "wasn't smooth".

Once the NVIDIA partnership with Samsung fell through, the company approached SK hynix with the two companies forming a partnership in HBM development, which has seen SK hynix's rise to HBM fame over the years as NVIDIA has dominated the AI GPU market. SK hynix is now expected to reach record-high performance by supplying HBM3E memory to NVIDIA.

The industry source expressed regret, adding: "if Samsung Foundry had partnered with NVIDIA at that time, there wouldn't be the current monopolistic situation where TSMC takes all of NVIDIA's volume".