Artificial intelligence keywords dominate this year’s CES. As the AI era begins in earnest, global companies and big tech companies are each promoting their products with AI keywords. SK Hynix is also solidifying its position as a 'total AI memory supplier' by showcasing memory semiconductors, the driving force behind AI development, at CES 2024, the largest electronics and home appliance exhibition.

On the 8th (US time), SK Hynix CEO and President Kwak No-jeong held a media conference on the topic of 'Memory, The Power of AI' in Las Vegas, USA, where CES 2024 is being held, and gave a lecture on the company's future vision.

At the event with major domestic and foreign reporters, President Kwak predicted that “as generative artificial intelligence becomes more widespread, the importance of memory will grow even more,” and emphasized that “SK Hynix is leading the ‘Memory Centric AI Everywhere’ era by supplying products based on the world’s best technologies to the ICT industry.”

In addition, he diagnosed that “as the development speed of AI systems is accelerating, customers’ requirements for memory are diversifying,” and announced that “we will introduce a ‘Custom Memory Platform’ to provide AI memory solutions specialized for each customer.”

■ Memory looking at AGI

The ICT industry is rapidly developing beyond PCs and mobile devices into the cloud-based AI era, and in the process, a huge amount of data is being generated., is communicating. In line with this explosive growth in data, a new era called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is approaching.

SK Hynix predicts that the future will be an era in which AGI will continuously produce data on its own and repeat learning and evolution, and emphasizes that the key to processing data in the AGI era is 'memory'.

The importance of memory becomes even clearer when we look into the processing of computing systems. In the past, the structure was to sequentially repeat data transmission through a single path between the CPU and memory, which had limitations in processing the large amount of data generated through artificial intelligence.

Since AI systems require a large number of AI chips and memories to be connected in parallel to process large amounts of data more quickly, the performance improvement of AI systems is closely linked to the advancement of memory chips.

Providing more data as quickly and efficiently as possible is the role that memory must play in the AI era, and this paradigm is consistent with the direction of memory development that has been progressing over a long period of time in terms of capacity, speed, and bandwidth.

■ SK Hynix Memory Industry Leading Strategy

SK Hynix, which is looking forward to the era of memory-centric AGI, is supplying various ultra-high-performance products to the market and industry, including △HBM3/3E, which is the world's best and currently used by the largest number of AI customers worldwide, △High Capacity TSV DIMM, the highest-capacity server memory, △LPDDR5T, the world's fastest mobile memory, and △DIMM, the world's best performance memory.

Through this, SK Hynix is expected to accelerate the supply of AI solutions centered on memory in various industries, including AGI, data centers, mobile, and PCs.

In the future, the company is focusing its capital and development capabilities on accelerating technological innovation in areas such as △HBM4 and 4E based on high bandwidth, △LPCAMM for low power, △CXL and QLC storage for capacity expansion, and △PIM for improved information processing, with the goal of establishing technological leadership as a ‘leading memory company opening a new chapter in the AI era.’

■ Customized and comprehensive memory business direction

The pace of AI system development is rapidly accelerating.The memory performance required by the market is becoming increasingly diverse depending on the load.

For example, some businesses may value capacity and power efficiency, while others may prefer bandwidth and processing capabilities.

In order to respond to the diverse needs of these markets, SK Hynix is said to be preparing a Custom Memory Platform. This is a platform that optimally combines AI memory technology and R&D capabilities with the needs of each customer.

Through this, it seems that the business of providing memory solutions specialized for individual customers will become the future direction of AI memory.

SK Hynix plans to invest more than 120 trillion won to build a new memory production base, the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster, on a 4.15 million square meter site in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. This is expected to expand the supply of memory in a timely manner in the explosively growing AI semiconductor market, beyond the demands of existing customers.

SK Hynix is preparing for the future of AI by pursuing comprehensive expansion from product development to infrastructure investment through the vision of a ‘total AI memory provider.’