When it comes to making bank off the currently insatiable demand for AI hardware, the companies with the biggest, ear-to-ear grins are those that make the processors, memory, and storage chips for such systems. In the case of the latter two, it's been so highly profitable that they have collectively agreed to substantially fund a drive by South Korea's government to "secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country."
A report by Reuters has all the pertinent details, but the gist of it all is this: President Lee Jae Myung declared that around 900 trillion won ($583 billion) would be invested in new chip-making facilities, earmarked for sites in the southwest region of South Korea. According to industry minister Kim Jung-kwan, 800 trillion won would come from Samsung and SK hynix.
These two companies hold around two-thirds of the global DRAM market share, and along with the US-based Micron, they're the only companies that produce HBM (high bandwidth memory) modules for Nvidia's AI processors.
By any measure, $583...
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