AMD and Samsung forge closer ties on AI memory, potential foundry deal

AMD and Samsung Electronics have announced plans to team up on “next-generation” chip development for AI.

The agreement between the duo will see Samsung supply high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) for AMD’s Instinct MI455X AI accelerators, the companies said in a statement.

AMD chief executive Lisa Su said the agreement aims to drive collaboration amidst a sharpened focus on AI infrastructure development.

“We are thrilled to expand our work with Samsung, bringing together their leadership in advanced memory with our Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs and rack-scale platforms,” she said.

The partnership will also ramp up integration “across the full computing stack, from silicon to system to rack”, Su added.

Young Hyun Jun, vice chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics said the company is “uniquely positioned to deliver unrivaled turnkey capabilities that support AMD’s evolving AI roadmap”.

Closer ties

The new agreement builds on long-standing ties between the two companies, with Samsung already providing AMD with HBM3E chips used to power AMD’s MI350X and MI355X accelerators.

Samsung’s HBM4 is built using its 6th-generation 10-nanometer (nm) DRAM process (1c) and a 4nm logic base die, boasting processing speeds of up to 13 gigabits per second, as well as a maximum of 3.3 terabytes per second bandwidth.

AMD said this will be crucial in underpinning the Instinct MI455X GPU range, which is designed specifically for use in high-performance systems that handle AI model training and inference.

MI455X GPUs form a key component of AMD’s Helios open rack-scale architecture, a platform designed for AI workloads, which is due to launch in late 2026.

The partnership will also see the pair collaborate on development of optimized DDR5 memory for AMD’s sixth-gen EPYC CPUs, also for use in the Helios architecture.

Crunch time for chipmakers

As part of the agreement, Samsung said the two companies will also “discuss opportunities” for a foundry partnership, with the South Korean firm providing services for future AMD products.

This aspect of the agreement comes as Nvidia fosters closer ties with the company.

Speaking at Nvidia GTC 2026 this week, CEO Jensen Huang noted Samsung is manufacturing the Groq 3 LPU, which is set to be integrated within the firm’s Vera Rubin architecture.

The deal also comes as the tech industry contends with acute memory and storage shortages. Samsung previously warned that the memory shortage could continue into 2027, while SK Hynix also issued a similar warning.

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