Seeing Jensen Huang land in Korea brings up a lot of
mixed but mostly proud emotions for me. It is truly
remarkable to see companies like
- $005930 (Samsung Electronics)
- $000660 (SK Hynix)
- $005380 (Hyundai Motor)
operating on such a massive global scale and
elevating our national presence.
The world is changing incredibly fast. At home, there is
a lot of domestic noise right now with the elections,
but I sincerely hope things settle down soon so we can
focus on the future. Putting the politics aside, this visit
made me reflect deeply on where Korea stands in the
global AI supply chain.
Here are my thoughts on where we might be heading.
1) The Evolution of Semiconductors
From my perspective, the semiconductor dynamic
is shifting from simple supply to actual codevelopment.
To give a bit of context, the chipmaking process
generally goes through three main phases: design
(architecting the blueprint), foundry (manufacturing the
physical silicon wafers), and packaging (stacking and
connecting the chips to work together).
Starting with the upcoming HBM4 and HBM5, the base
die will be built using advanced foundry processes.
Samsung is aiming to offer a turnkey solution that
covers design, memory, foundry, and packaging all in
one ecosystem. While we have to wait and see how the
yields play out, providing this all in one service could
be a significant advantage for Nvidia.
But
$Nvidia is not the only tech giant realizing that
controlling the entire hardware stack is the ultimate
endgame. Just look at what Elon Musk and Intel are
attempting to pull off right now with the Terafab
project.
In March 2026,
$Tesla and SpaceX announced a
massive joint venture with Intel Foundry Services to
build a vertically integrated semiconductor plant in
Texas. Musk made a blunt admission that the current
global capacity of
$TSMC,
$Samsung, and
$Intel
combined will simply not be enough to handle the
massive inference needs of Full Self Driving(FSD) and his Optimus robots.
What is truly fascinating is how Terafab directly mirrors
$Samsung's turnkey ambitions.
$Tesla and
$Intel are trying to consolidate everything from logic fabrication and memory production to advanced packaging under a single roof. We are essentially watching two massive
alliances race toward the exact same concept of total
vertical integration.
On one side, you have the
$Tesla and
$Intel alliance
taking a massive gamble to build a unified ecosystem
in the US. On the other side, you have the
$Nvidia and
Samsung alliance leveraging a massive physical
infrastructure that is already heavily established in
Korea. While Intel has struggled to execute its
advanced process roadmap consistently,
$Samsung
already holds a dominant global position in memory
and packaging. If
$Samsung can successfully prove its
turnkey model with
$Nvidia before Terafab scales up, I
believe it will cement Korea's status as the undeniable
center of gravity for global AI hardware.
2)
$Hyundai and the Shift to Physical AI
Having spent years seeing with actual operational
technology and physical plant equipment, I have seen
firsthand how messy and unpredictable real world
manufacturing data can be.
$Hyundai did not just jump into robotics overnight. Theywent through years of trial and error with traditional mobility before realizing that standard automated machines simply cannot handle the infinite variables of the physical world. That realization led to their acquisition of Boston Dynamics in 2020 for about $1.1 billion. They have been experimenting with how to fuse raw mechanical hardware with adaptive software ever since.
Jensen Huang noted that humans need the cloud, but
robots need AI factories. The vision for the
Saemangeum AI Valley seems to align perfectly with
this concept. It looks like a testing ground to mass
produce the brains of robots by feeding them massive
amounts of physical world data. Autonomous
platforms like MobED and Spot are just the early
stages of what could become a self evolving logistics
and manufacturing ecosystem.
The Ripple Effect on the Supply Chain Because the
data from actual manufacturing and robotics requires
such extreme precision, I believe the domestic
equipment and materials supply chain will naturally
have to evolve. We are already seeing signs of capital
moving toward advanced packaging, high yield testing
equipment, and specialized heat resistant materials. If
domestic foundries collaborate more deeply on chips
for autonomous driving, our local design partners
could also see entirely new opportunities open up.
Of course, the market is unpredictable and I could be
misjudging the timeline. But looking at the objective
capital flows and physical infrastructure being built,
the foundation is undeniably there.
South Korea’s manufacturing roots seem to be an essential piece of the global AI puzzle.
We should be keeping a close eye on how these
partnerships mature over the coming years.
Finally, a huge thank you to Jensen for visiting Korea.
Not financial advice. Do your own research.