SK Group seals $750b semiconductor deal with Nvidia, Microsoft, Anthropic

SK Group is set to partner with Nvidia and other global tech giants on advanced memory chip supply cooperation worth $750 billion over the next five years — a sweeping collaboration spanning AI memory, AI factories and data centers.

SK reached agreements on AI infrastructure cooperation with Nvidia, Microsoft and Anthropic at the K-AI Summit held Friday (local time) at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The group also held a separate meeting with Amazon Web Services to discuss expanding domestic AI infrastructure cooperation, building on their partnership to jointly develop an AI data center in Ulsan.

SK Group and Nvidia agreed to pursue comprehensive cooperation to build AI infrastructure worth more than $500 billion, covering everything from AI factory construction to AI memory supply. The two companies signed a letter of intent to that effect. SK Telecom will receive next-generation GPUs from Nvidia to build what would be South Korea's largest AI factory, with a capacity of up to 2 GW.

The plan builds on a gigawatt-scale AI factory construction agreement the two companies reached in June. SK Telecom intends to deploy Nvidia's DSX platform — the company's full-stack AI factory architecture — and introduce Vera Rubin, a next-generation AI computing system equipped with SK Hynix's HBM4, rolling out the AI factory in stages starting next year.

SK Hynix will supply AI memory to Nvidia on a long-term basis. The two companies plan to jointly develop and optimize next-generation AI memory, including HBM, to meet growing infrastructure demand spanning large language model training, agentic AI and physical AI applications.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said South Korea has everything it needs to emerge as a global AI powerhouse — world-class networks, data center capabilities, semiconductor technology leadership and a vast industrial base — and underscored his vision for cooperation with SK Telecom and SK Hynix. Separately, SK Hynix also reached a long-term memory supply agreement with Microsoft, under which the two companies will supply server memory optimized for AI workloads to Microsoft's data centers over the medium to long term.

SK Telecom and Anthropic signed a comprehensive MOU to cooperate on building a gigawatt-scale AI data center in South Korea. Anthropic plans to participate in SK Telecom's domestic AI data center construction project and will continue discussions on specific areas of collaboration. SK Group also discussed expanding AI infrastructure cooperation with AWS, drawing on the working relationship built during the joint development of the Ulsan AI data center. The two companies envision combining SK Telecom's domestic AI data center construction and operating capabilities with AWS's global cloud and AI technology and customer base to secure gigawatt-scale AI computing capacity over the long term.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won also met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to exchange views on long-term cooperation in AI infrastructure. SK and OpenAI have been deepening their strategic partnership since signing an agreement last October covering memory supply and the establishment and operation of an AI data center in southwestern South Korea.

"SK will work with Nvidia to build a world-class AI factory, leveraging SK Telecom's AI infrastructure capabilities and SK Hynix's AI memory," Chey said. "We will contribute to making South Korea a global hub for AI innovation."

On the government's three major mega-projects, Chey acknowledged that the scale of investment might seem unfamiliar but said it was "a realistic plan grounded in actual demand from the global AI market." He added that the three mega-projects are "AI projects for South Korea's growth and a project for all of us," saying the country must "pool its capabilities as quickly as possible and make them succeed without fail."