(Bloomberg) -- Nvidia Corp. head Jensen Huang said that Samsung Electronics Co. has faced difficulties producing a new type of memory chip for AI systems, but he expressed confidence that the partner company would overcome the challenges.
The technology in question — the latest type of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM — is a vital part of new artificial intelligence systems that feature Nvidia chips. Samsung has been slower than rivals such as SK Hynix Inc. in producing HBM that meets Nvidia’s standards, and Huang acknowledged those challenges during a press briefing at the CES conference in Las Vegas Tuesday.
“They have to engineer a new design,” Huang, Nvidia’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said at the event. “But they can do it. They are working very fast. They’re very committed to do it.”
Samsung is the largest overall maker of memory chips, but it’s fallen behind rivals in the lucrative AI market. That weighed on its latest quarterly results, released Wednesday morning, which fell well short of analysts’ estimates.
Sales of AI computing systems powered by Nvidia have exploded over the past two years. Nvidia’s chips serve as the heart of the machines, which create AI models by bombarding the software with data. Memory chips are key to the operation because they supply the processors with information.
Trying to increase the speed and capacity of memory — and tightly integrate the components with processors — has added new levels of complexity to production of the chips. Samsung has been working through those obstacles.
“They’re going to succeed — no question,” Huang said. “I have confidence that Samsung will succeed with HBM.”
--With assistance from Yoolim Lee.
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