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Nvidia's HBM Demand Creates Korean Chipmaker Rivalry

Jun 5, 2026
Nvidia's HBM Demand Creates Korean Chipmaker Rivalry

Jensen Huang's visit to South Korea is far more than a diplomatic tour; it's a strategic maneuver to secure Nvidia's next-generation High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) supply chain. With demand for its H200 and upcoming B200 GPUs surging, Nvidia is critically dependent on HBM3e memory, a market dominated by Korean titans SK Hynix and Samsung. This visit signals Nvidia's intent to diversify its HBM sourcing, moving beyond its primary reliance on SK Hynix and forcing Samsung to aggressively compete on quality and volume. This move directly addresses the single greatest bottleneck to AI's continued scaling: the production of specialized hardware components. The dynamic fundamentally alters the balance of power in the memory market. By orchestrating a public