MOU scope and valuation
Samsung Electronics and Broadcom signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday in San Francisco covering up to $200 billion in cooperation through 2030 across memory chips, foundry services, and advanced packaging. The agreement was announced at the San Francisco AI Summit, with Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Samsung's foundry division president Han Jin-man signing alongside other executives and government officials. South Korea's presidential office described the cooperation as long-term advance purchase commitments from global technology customers rather than Korean overseas investment, framing it as a five-year purchase agreement for memory and foundry output.
Foundry and advanced packaging collaboration
Under the MOU, Broadcom's next-generation communications chips, designed for high-speed data transfer, will be manufactured using Samsung's sub-2-nanometer process technology. Samsung will also provide advanced packaging based on its 2-nanometer process to support high-performance, high-efficiency AI semiconductors. The agreement extends the companies' collaboration well beyond memory into manufacturing and packaging, with Samsung positioning a one-stop turnkey solution that spans chip design and process co-optimization through advanced packaging and mass production.
Memory chip and HBM development
The partnership also covers collaboration on next-generation high-bandwidth memory products, with Samsung's HBM intended to underpin Broadcom's AI accelerators. Jun Young-hyun, Samsung Electronics CEO and head of the DS Division, said tightly integrated memory, logic, and packaging solutions are critical in the AI era. Analysts cited in the coverage said the MOU signals recognition of Samsung's competitiveness in the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) space and gives fresh momentum to Samsung's foundry business as global technology companies accelerate adoption of their own AI accelerators.
Strategic context: AI Summit and broader Korean partnerships
The Broadcom pact is part of a broader $950 billion package of semiconductor partnerships unveiled at the summit between Korean conglomerates and US AI firms. SK Group separately agreed to pursue $750 billion in long-term advanced memory supply partnerships with Nvidia and other technology companies, including a more than $500 billion partnership between SK Hynix and Nvidia that spans large-scale AI data centers and next-generation memory. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met separately with Tan, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, OpenAI's Sam Altman, and Anthropic's Dario Amodei before joining the summit, with Lee's policy chief later stating that Broadcom's memory demand was likely to surpass available supply.
Industry context and competition with TSMC
Coverage suggested the Broadcom agreement could lift utilization at Samsung's advanced manufacturing facilities and help it narrow the gap with foundry leader TSMC by securing a marquee AI customer. Samsung said earlier this year it expected to secure more advanced 2-nanometer foundry orders in the near term following discussions with major technology customers. The deal builds on Samsung's prior $16.5 billion contract to manufacture logic chips for Tesla, illustrating its broader push for large-scale AI and automotive foundry commitments.
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