AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, is reportedly flying to South Korea next week to meet with executives to discuss memory and supply chain matters.
AMD's CEO Is Expected to Visit South Korea After More Than a Decade, Likely to Secure Supply Capacity Upfront
For companies like AMD and NVIDIA, which are involved in the world's largest infrastructure buildout, it's probably in their best interests to keep their supply chain partners close, and we have already seen Jensen execute on this. NVIDIA's CEO visited Taiwan and South Korea several times last year to meet with supply chain executives, which has helped the firm maintain an edge in procuring capacity for its current and future products. It appears that AMD's CEO has become proactive in the AI supply chain as well, with Korean media reporting that she will visit South Korea by March 18.
According to industry sources on the 11th, AMD CEO Lisa Su will visit Korea on the 18th. This will be her first visit since taking office in 2014. CEO Su plans to meet with key Korean partners, including Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, and discuss cooperation plans in areas such as data centers.
- MK
AMD's CEO meeting with executives from South Korea comes at a time when the company is moving into the next generation of AI infrastructure capabilities. We have already seen how determined Team Red is to compete against NVIDIA's offerings with its Instinct MI400 series, and at the same time, AMD has also made massive strides in the server CPU segment as well, which is why the company is confident to be a lot more aggressive in competing within the agentic AI segment alongside NVIDIA. And to ensure AMD can fulfill customer demand, Lisa Su appears determined to bring supply chain partners on board.
One of the more important meetings is with Samsung's Chairman Jay Y. Lee, where the focus would likely be on discussing memory and semiconductors. AMD has been a key customer of Samsung's HBM business, becoming one of the first ones to secure HBM3E supply from the Korean giant, and it appears that Team Red will also be a crucial part of the HBM4 capacity Samsung has onboard. This time, Samsung's HBM business has become an important part of NVIDIA's supply chain as well, which means securing the desired capacity won't be as easy for AMD as it was before.
AMD was also reported to be deepening its partnership with Samsung on the foundry front, as both parties discussed cooperation on 2nm chips for EPYC Venice CPUs. This ultimately indicates that Korean supply chain partners will be much more involved in AMD's operations going forward, which is why Lisa's visit to South Korea after more than a decade is significant. It's also important to realize that AMD competes in a market where NVIDIA loves "constraints", given that the latter has a much tighter grip on the supply chain.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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