SOUTH Korea’s SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, said on Friday it will collaborate with Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC to make next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI technology.

SK hynix dominates the market for HBM chips - crucial components to power artificial intelligence - and is a top supplier to US-based chip titan Nvidia. TSMC also supplies Nvidia.

The South Korean company “recently signed a memorandum of understanding with TSMC for collaboration to produce next-generation HBM”, SK hynix said in a statement on Friday.

SK hynix “plans to proceed with the development of HBM4, or the sixth generation of the HBM family, slated to be mass produced from 2026, through this initiative”, it added.

To develop HBM4, TSMC’s “advanced logic process” will be adopted to produce “customised HBM that meets a wide range of customer demand for performance and power efficiency”, SK hynix said.

The two firms will also collaborate to optimise the integration of SK hynix’s HBM and TSMC’s packaging process, called CoWoS technology, the South Korean company said.

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Nvidia’s singular role in the AI revolution has taken the world by storm since the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022.

Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have also developed chips with AI in mind, but for now are stuck trying to get their hands on Nvidia’s coveted products in order to deliver on their own AI promises.

SK hynix said last month that it had begun mass production of the HBM3E, the latest HBM iteration. AFP