Tweet
Samsung's foundry division scored a big win when Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the carmaker had inked a $16.5 billion deal with the Korean giant to manufacture its next-generation AI6 chip.
Rumor has it that the company could score another major chip deal from Musk, this time for his privately held AI company xAI.
Samsung's foundry division may be at the cusp of a turnaround
AI companies like xAI and OpenAI are investing insane amounts of money in hardware. Many of them are also working on custom AI chips and all of them will need to work with a manufacturer like Samsung or TSMC to get them made.
Details on xAI's custom chip are very slim right now, but the company did recently post a job listing for a custom silicon developer. The company is expected to develop custom ASIC for its AI workloads. A rumor out of South Korea claims that Samsung would be considered as a potential manufacturing partner for this chip.
Musk has publicly thrown his weight behind Samsung Foundry even after concerns arose when the Tesla deal was announced. He also mentioned that the $16.5 billion figure was an initial estimate and depending on how things pan out, the final deal could be worth a lot more. This could certainly end up being true as any order for custom ASICs would likely be in the billions of dollars.
Samsung will make those Tesla chips at its US factory in Texas. With domestic manufacturing a major concern in the US right now, and Samsung's plans to incorporate the advanced 2nm process at the facility, things may very well fall into place for Samsung to bag another major order.
The post Elon Musk may have another billion dollar AI chip deal for Samsung appeared first on SamMobile.
More...
