Samsung and SK Hynix prepare major memory chip announcements
On July 24, 2026, South Korean presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom told reporters that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix would unveil large long-term memory chip supply contracts with US technology firms during President Lee Jae-myung's visit to San Francisco. Kim described the announcements as cementing the technology and economic partnership between South Korea and the United States and said "very large and meaningful figures" would be revealed. President Lee departed for San Francisco on July 24 before continuing to South America for additional regional summits.
San Francisco AI summit lineup and corporate agenda
Kim said the summit would place CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Broadcom on stage alongside leaders of Samsung, SK Hynix, Hyundai Motor, and Naver for an AI dialogue. President Lee was scheduled to deliver a "San Francisco AI Declaration" at the AI summit on July 24-25 and to meet Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, and Hyundai Motor Executive Chair Euisun Chung were named as participants in the AI summit.
AMD nears formal HBM4 supply agreement with Samsung
At AMD's "AMD Advancing AI 2026" event in San Francisco on July 23, AMD CEO Lisa Su told Seoul Economic Daily that AMD was "almost close" to signing a formal HBM4 supply contract with Samsung Electronics. AMD had signed a memorandum of understanding with Samsung in March for priority HBM4 supply for its new AI accelerators and cooperation on Samsung's foundry. Samsung's foundry division head Han Jin-man and DSA chief Cho Sang-yeon attended Su's keynote and held follow-up discussions with AMD executives including Chief Technology Officer Joseph Macri, who described the relationship as "collaborative."
Samsung formalizes humanoid robotics business unit
Samsung Electronics officially launched its Robotics eXperience (RX) Business Promotion Office on July 21, 2026, consolidating prior robotics efforts into a single CEO-controlled unit. Samsung Research had already published "Shallow-π," a Vision-Language-Action model that compresses AI control steps to one-third of previous requirements, makes 17 decisions per second, and achieved a 95 percent success rate on sub-millimeter water hose insertion tasks in field testing. The company hired Executive Vice President Lee Dongkun, who previously directed robotics strategy at Hyundai Motor Group and worked on Boston Dynamics programs, in May 2026 to lead the new division.
Industrial-first robotics deployment and AI factory goal
Samsung plans to deploy humanoid robots first inside its own manufacturing facilities before offering them to external customers. A "Robot Data Factory" at Samsung's Gumi plant in North Gyeongsang Province will generate training data by running robots on actual production lines, with a primary R&D hub at Samsung's Umyeon-dong campus in Seoul. The company set a public goal to transform all global manufacturing sites into "AI autonomous factories" by 2030.
Korea's broader AI data center investment plans
Kim said global technology companies would also announce "strategic investments" in Korean AI data centers alongside the chip deals. The South Korean government plans an initial 8.4GW of AIDC capacity, expanding to 18.4GW in a second phase, and is preparing to disclose confirmed customer and investment agreements in the coming months. Kim added that 80 to 90 percent of orders for expanded Korean fab capacity come from US firms and that neither the Trump administration nor the US Department of Commerce had made an official request for additional Korean investment following the recent Gwangju-Jeonnam cluster announcement.
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