Samsung Elec wins $200 billion Broadcom AI chip partnership, boosting foundry push

Samsung Electronics said on Saturday it struck a pact with U.S. chip designer Broadcom to widen cooperation across memory chips, contract ​chip making and advanced packaging envisaged to exceed $200 billion until ‌2030. Winning long-term production commitments from Broadcom, one of the world’s leading custom AI chip designers, could boost utilisation at Samsung’s advanced manufacturing facilities to pull ahead in the ​race to supply AI chips. “The expanded collaboration … reflects Samsung’s focus on ​supporting customers with end-to-end semiconductor technologies across an increasingly diverse range ⁠of AI and high-performance computing applications,” the company said in a ​statement. The tie-up comes as global technology companies increasingly develop their own custom AI ​accelerators, rather than relying solely on general-purpose graphics processors, driving demand for specialised chip design and manufacturing partnerships. The two firms’ memorandum of understanding underscores Samsung’s efforts to beef up ​its position in AI semiconductors by expanding its long-term ties with Broadcom ​amid growing demand up for custom AI processors. The next five years of collaboration will ‌combine ⁠Broadcom’s expertise in designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or chips for specific tasks, with Samsung’s manufacturing capabilities. The deal provides for Broadcom’s next-generation communications chips, designed for high-speed data transfer, to be made with Samsung’s sub-2-nanometre process technology, Samsung said. The two ​will also collaborate ​on next-generation high-bandwidth ⁠memory (HBM) products. The partnership could help strengthen Samsung’s foundry business, as it seeks to narrow the gap with industry leader ​TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab by wooing major technology customers. Last month, co-CEO and ​chip division ⁠head Jun Young-hyun said he discussed next-generation foundry cooperation with Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, including future HBM4E and HBM5 memory products. Samsung said this year it ⁠expected ​to secure more advanced 2-nanometre foundry orders in ​the near term after discussions with major tech companies. Last year, it won a $16.5-billion contract to ​make logic chips for EV maker Tesla.