Some details about Samsung’s first in-house AI accelerator chip, the Mach-1, were revealed earlier this week. Samsung’s aim with this product is to break NVIDIA’s dominance in the AI accelerator market and establish itself as one of the dominant players in this segment. It looks like at least one company has become convinced of what Samsung is working on and has decided to lock in AI accelerator orders for Mach-1 that would otherwise go to NVIDIA. The potential value of this deal is estimated at $752 million.
Samsung expands its artificial intelligence business
Samsung will reportedly supply its Mach-1 AI accelerator chip to Korean internet giant Naver Corp. by the end of this year in a deal worth up to $752 million. This deal also helps Naver reduce its reliance on NVIDIA for AI chips.
Dual sourcing is a common practice in semiconductor markets. No company wants to be overly dependent on a single supplier due to availability and price concerns. That’s why Samsung is balancing high-end Qualcomm chipsets with Exynos for its mobile devices, and Naver is looking beyond NVIDIA for AI accelerators.