Nvidia’s Huang asked SK Hynix to delay shipments of HBM4 chips by 6 months, says SK chairman

Author: Hyunju Jin

SEOUL (Reuters) – NVIDIA Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has asked memory chipmaker SK Hynix to delay shipments of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips called HBM4 by six months, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said on Monday.

In October, SK Hynix said it aimed to ship chips to customers in the second half of 2025. An SK Hynix spokesman said Monday that the timeline was faster than the original target, without elaborating.

Huang’s request for faster delivery underscores expectations of strong demand for the next versions of Nvidia’s GPUs used for artificial intelligence, which will contain the new HBM chips. Nvidia controls more than 80% of the artificial intelligence chip market.

SK Hynix is ​​leading the global race to meet growing demand for HBM chips, which help process massive amounts of data for training artificial intelligence technology and are critical to Nvidia’s GPUs.

But rivals such as Samsung Electronics and Micron are trying to catch up.

Last week, Samsung said it had made progress on a supply agreement with an unnamed major customer following delays with its 8-layer HBM3E chips.

SK Hynix stated that the market is moving from 8-layer to 12-layer HBM3E. SK Hynix began mass production of 12-layer HBM3E film in September and plans to ship the latest products to undisclosed customers in the current quarter.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Joyce Lee; Editing by Ed Davis and Himani Sarkar)