NuAxiSemiconductor trade intelligence

AMD seeks 'broader partnership' with Samsung as it looks to secure memory supply

What happened

According to a report by Chosun.biz (published 8 October 2026), AMD CEO Lisa Su is visiting South Korea to secure additional supply of HBM memory for AI accelerators, saying 'We are going to talk about our broader partnership' with Samsung executives; Samsung, meanwhile, reportedly 'hopes to turn its memory supply relationship with AMD into foundry' orders for logic chips. The visit comes a little less than seven months after the two companies signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) this March, effective for three years and covering four areas: supply of next-generation memory products including HBM4 and advanced DDR5; co-development and optimization of memory solutions for AI and high-performance computing systems; exploration of foundry manufacturing opportunities for future AMD platforms; and co-optimization of advanced packaging and related semiconductor technologies. Samsung has become a principal supplier of HBM4 for AMD's Instinct MI400-series accelerators; expanding collaboration beyond memory supply is considerably more complicated, as it involves considerable efforts to design chips for Samsung Foundry's process technologies and risks associated with a product ramp at a new contract chipmaker — AMD's most recent Annual Report states that transitioning production of some products to new manufacturers may cause delayed product introductions, lower yields or poorer performance. AMD has already started shipments of its Instinct MI455 accelerators with 432GB of HBM4 onboard as well as rack-scale Helios AI systems to interested parties; Su said 'Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are key supply-chain partners for AMD,' that 'AI demand is extremely high' so AMD is planning its long-term supply chain with partners, and that 'It is important to plan three to five years ahead with our partners.' The article concludes that AMD is negotiating for more memory supply and whether it will take the risk of adopting Samsung Foundry beyond niche programmable chips 'only time will tell.'