00:02You're listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
00:06China just allowed ByteDance and Tencent to bring in NVIDIA's H200 AI chips for the first
00:12time this year. Samsung and SK Hynix stock got hammered, even though HBM demand hasn't
00:19slowed at all. Samsung just raised foundry order prices by as much as 15% because TSMC's
00:26capacity is maxed out, and Hanwha Aerospace just became the first Korean company in 76
00:32years to sell howitzers to the U.S. Army. It's Thursday, August 20. Let's look at a business
00:38story shaping corporate Korea. Global chip supply chains are shifting fast as China eases
00:44restrictions on U.S. AI chips and Taiwan's TSMC runs out of room to expand. That's giving
00:51Samsung new pricing power in foundry, even as its memory business gets caught in a broader
00:56AI stock sell-off. Meanwhile, Korean defense and governance stories show how competitive
01:02positioning and boardroom structure are both being tested this week. Here's what the numbers
01:08show. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell 7.82% and 9.75% on August 19, as the Philadelphia
01:18Semiconductor Index dropped nearly 5% overnight. Samsung raised prices on its SF4 process by 10-15%
01:27for U.S. and Chinese customers in July, with SF5 wafer prices also up 10-15%. China allowed
01:36ByteDance and Tencent to import roughly 10,000 NVIDIA H200 chips each in recent weeks, with the
01:43U.S. approving purchases of up to 100,000 units per company. Hanwha Aerospace was selected
01:49as the sole prototype supplier for the U.S. Army's Mobile Tactical Cannon program, opening
01:55a path to a roughly 10 trillion won production contract. Korea Zinc's shareholder structure
02:00will shift again after a September 9 extraordinary meeting adds an independent audit committee member
02:06under revised corporate law. TSMC still controls more than 70% of global foundry revenue versus
02:14Samsung's roughly 7%, so Samsung's pricing gains depend on TSMC's capacity crunch persisting.
02:22Samsung expects its foundry business to turn profitable as early as next year if utilization
02:27and yields keep improving. So what does this mean for C-suite leaders running operations in Korea?
02:34Earlier, we said Samsung raised foundry prices as TSMC hit capacity limits. That pricing power could
02:41accelerate Samsung's push into profitability and give multinational clients a genuine second-source
02:47option outside Taiwan. The eased flow of NVIDIA chips into China adds a new variable for supply chain
02:55planning if your company sources AI infrastructure regionally. And Hanwha's U.S. defense win, alongside
03:01Korea Zinc's governance overhaul, both signal that board-level decisions on market entry and independent
03:08oversight are under closer scrutiny than ever. Watch Samsung's Q3 foundry profitability update and any
03:15further pricing moves. Watch follow-on U.S. Army production contract decisions on Hanwha's K9MH howitzer.
03:23Watch Korea Zinc's September 9th extraordinary shareholder meeting on the new audit committee
03:29seat. That's today's AI Prism CEO. This episode was produced with AI assistance based on Seoul
03:37Economic Daily reporting and reviewed by a human editor. AI Prism is a Juan Ifra award-winning series.
03:44We'll be back tomorrow. You've been listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
댓글