With the AI race in full swing, Samsung Foundry has reportedly secured a contract to manufacture Anthropic's AI chips. Anthropic has slowly shaped up to be one of the most important players in the AI industry courtesy of its advanced AI models. As the AI semiconductor sector remains highly concentrated, with the bulk of chips designed and sold by NVIDIA, major players such as Google, OpenAI and Amazon are designing custom chips. Samsung's deal with Anthropic is expected to allow the foundry business to return to growth, say the sources, and allow it to reverse a deficit.
Anthropic to Purportedly Utilize Samsung's 2-nanometer Chip Manufacturing Process Technology For Its AI Chip, Says Report
Today's report quotes Anthropic's press release for its Series H funding round. The funding round was completed in May, and the firm announced a list of partners that had helped it secure the funding and had signed up as 'strategic infrastructure partners.' Memory giants Samsung, SK hynix and Micron were among Anthropic's infrastructure partners, and the firm added that they would help it "scale our compute reliably at the pace our customers need."
According to the industry sources quoted by the Korean publication NewsWorks, since Samsung is the only company among Anthropic's infrastructure partners to have a foundry capable of manufacturing non-memory chips, it is likely to win orders for the products.
The report also claims that Samsung secured Anthropic as a foundry customer, with an insider outlining that the division has decided to produce Anthropic's chips. The orders are also expected to convert the foundry business's deficit into a growth phase, as per the source
Today's report follows claims by Samsung's management that Tesla's AI5 chip has entered into the tape-out phase with it. Tape-out is the final step in the semiconductor design process. Through it, the final chip design is sent to the foundry to allow the manufacturer to calibrate its tools to meet specifications.
As per the details, a senior engineer at Samsung Foundry, Kim Jeong-gon, posted on LinkedIn that "the Tesla-Samsung AI5 chip has entered the tape-out stage (the stage where the design is completed and the blueprints are handed over to the foundry plant)." He added, "This chip is scheduled to be produced at the Taylor plant using a 2nm process and will soon be installed in Tesla's latest products."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made tall claims for the AI5 in January as he remarked that the chip would rival NVIDIA's Blackwell and Hopper products while being significantly cheaper and using less power as well.
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
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