Samsung snags $752 million order from NVIDIA for artificial intelligence chips

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's leading memory maker, is developing a new artificial intelligence chip called Mach-1. The goal of the South Korean technology giant is to overtake its competitor, NVIDIA, which currently dominates in the field of advanced high-performance memory.

Here's What We Know

In a deal worth $752 million, Samsung will supply its Mach-1 AI accelerators to Korean internet giant Naver Corp. by the end of this year. This will help Naver significantly reduce its dependence on NVIDIA for AI chips.

According to sources familiar with the situation, Samsung and Naver are in final negotiations on the exact volume and pricing. Samsung is expected to price the Mach-1 AI chip at around $3,756 per unit, while Naver plans to purchase between 150,000 and 200,000 units.

The deal with Naver could open up new opportunities for Samsung. The company hopes to attract major US companies including Microsoft and Meta, which are already in talks with Samsung to supply the AI accelerator.

Mach-1 has a number of advantages over NVIDIA's AI accelerator, which consists of GPUs and HBM chips. Mach-1 uses Samsung's own processors and low-power DRAM chips, resulting in fewer data transfer bottlenecks compared to NVIDIA's chip and higher energy efficiency. Samsung's AI accelerator is reportedly ten times cheaper than NVIDIA's chip.

Source: The Korea Economic Daily