SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won sat down with TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei in Taipei on Wednesday — their first face-to-face in two years — and agreed to "broaden their collaboration across next-generation HBM development and advanced packaging," SK Hynix said, capping a three-day diplomatic sprint at Computex 2026 that has effectively locked in the supply-chain triangle powering Nvidia's next AI cycle.
The meeting follows Chey's June 1 encounter with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who toured SK Hynix's Computex booth on Tuesday and, after handling an HBM4E prototype, told engineers "Please make more." Chey signalled he also plans to meet Foxconn Chairman Liu Yang Wei before leaving Taiwan — adding a fourth partner to an alliance tour that already includes Acer — completing what Korean media have called the samgak dongmaeng, or triangular alliance.
Why TSMC Is Non-Negotiable for SK Hynix
SK Hynix (000660.KS) commands roughly 70 percent of the global HBM market by revenue, but it cannot manufacture HBM without TSMC. For HBM4 — the sixth-generation product targeting Nvidia's forthcoming Vera Rubin AI accelerator — TSMC provides the 12-nanometer base die while SK Hynix contributes its fifth-generation 1b-process (10nm-class) DRAM cells stacked on top. Unlike Samsung Electronics, which handles base-die production through its own foundry division, SK Hynix relies entirely on TSMC for this step, making the partnership a structural pillar rather than a procurement option.
"Resolving bottlenecks in the current global AI value chain has emerged as the key task," an SK Hynix official said. "This cooperation is expected to contribute to stabilizing the AI semiconductor supply chain."
Samsung has been accelerating its own HBM4 development program and is expected to compete for a share of the Vera Rubin order. Wednesday's alliance summit signals that SK Hynix's competitive edge rests not only on memory yield but on the depth of locked-in foundry relationships — a supply-chain moat that Samsung's vertical integration cannot fully replicate at speed.
Seoul Is Next
Huang is due in Seoul as early as Friday, where meetings with Hyundai Motor Executive Chairman Chung Euisun, LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, and Naver founder and Chairman Lee Hae-jin are expected. On Sunday, Huang will throw the ceremonial first pitch at a Doosan Bears baseball game alongside Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won — a stretch of social diplomacy that suggests U.S. AI demand for Korean industrial, consumer and entertainment technology is expanding well beyond semiconductor packaging.
Sources: Korea Herald ("Chey deepens AI alliances as Huang heads to Seoul," June 4, 2026); BusinessKorea ("SK hynix, TSMC Reinforce AI Semiconductor Alliance," June 4, 2026); Digitimes ("HBM4 supply in focus as SK's Chey meets TSMC's Wei," June 4, 2026)
