Nvidia Secures $500 Billion SK Hynix HBM Deal as 2-Gigawatt AI Data Center Buildout Looms
Updated
Updated · CNBC · Jul 25
Nvidia Secures $500 Billion SK Hynix HBM Deal as 2-Gigawatt AI Data Center Buildout Looms
3 articles · Updated · CNBC · Jul 25
Summary
$500 billion is the potential value of Nvidia’s multiyear agreement with SK Hynix, which locks in high-bandwidth memory supply and includes co-developing next-generation AI memory.
HBM has become a critical bottleneck for Nvidia because the AI boom has created a global memory shortage, and analysts view SK Hynix as the market leader in that technology.
The deal also extends into infrastructure: Nvidia said large data centers are planned to start coming online in 2027, with a targeted 2 gigawatts of capacity implying hundreds of thousands of GPUs.
SK Telecom will build a cloud business around Nvidia’s Vera Rubin systems, while Nvidia separately said it would invest $1 billion in Naver’s GPU-based data center effort.
South Korean officials including President Lee Jae Myung attended the San Francisco announcement, underscoring how AI buildouts are spreading beyond hyperscalers to governments and conglomerates.
How will South Korea power the gigawatt-level AI factories Nvidia and Naver plan to build without crashing the national energy grid?
Is Nvidia's massive South Korean investment a push for global innovation, or a strategic move to monopolize critical semiconductor supply chains?
The $500 Billion Nvidia–SK Group Mega-Deal: Building the Backbone of Global AI and Memory Infrastructure
Overview
Driven by the explosive growth of large language models and generative AI, Nvidia and South Korea's SK Group have formed a $500 billion alliance to build massive AI data centers and co-develop next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM). As AI models scale, the main bottleneck has shifted from GPU compute to memory speed and capacity, prompting Nvidia to deepen its partnership with SK Hynix through industrial co-design. This surge in AI infrastructure is straining power grids and cooling systems, leading Nvidia to collaborate with Schneider Electric on new data center blueprints, while soaring electricity demand is fueling a boom in SK Group’s renewable energy ventures and reshaping South Korea’s energy and technology landscape.