Samsung and SK Hynix to announce major US tech deals during South Korean president’s Silicon Valley visit
South Korea's semiconductor giants are finalizing significant memory chip supply agreements with American tech firms, reinforcing the AI supply chain amid surging global demand
South Korea is bringing its A-game to Silicon Valley. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are set to unveil large-scale supply agreements with US technology companies during President Lee Jae Myung’s visit starting July 25, 2026, according to presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom.
The deals center on high-bandwidth memory chips, the specialized silicon that makes modern AI processors actually work.
What we know about the deals
On July 24, Kim Yong-beom confirmed that both Samsung and SK Hynix would announce their respective agreements during President Lee’s trip. The visit includes an AI summit and meetings with some of the biggest names in tech, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Exact deal values and specific partner names haven’t been disclosed yet, pending official announcements during the visit itself. Kim described the visit as a catalyst for “long-running negotiations,” suggesting months (possibly years) of groundwork coming to a head.
SK Hynix controls roughly 60% of global HBM market revenue. The company is already the primary supplier for Nvidia’s latest GPUs, which power the vast majority of AI training infrastructure worldwide.
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The $518 billion bet on semiconductors
South Korea has announced a sweeping investment plan totaling approximately $518 billion to build four new semiconductor fabrication plants.
President Lee’s decision to make Silicon Valley the destination for these announcements, rather than Seoul or a neutral venue, speaks volumes about where South Korea sees its strategic interests lying.
Why crypto investors should pay attention
AI infrastructure and crypto mining share overlapping hardware supply chains. The same advanced semiconductor technology powering AI data centers also underpins next-generation blockchain infrastructure, from high-performance validators to the GPU clusters used for zero-knowledge proof generation.
When major chip suppliers lock in long-term agreements with specific tech companies, it constrains the available supply for everyone else. If Samsung and SK Hynix are committing significant HBM capacity to Nvidia and other AI-focused buyers, that tightens the market for any other industry competing for advanced silicon.
Bitcoin mining operations have already experienced this squeeze. As AI companies have outbid miners for GPU and chip allocations, several major mining firms have pivoted to offering AI computing services, effectively acknowledging that the semiconductor supply chain now favors AI workloads over proof-of-work mining.