Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, visited Samsung Electronics’ booth at the GTC 2024 event in San Jose, California, on March 20 (local time) and left a handwritten signature on the 5th generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM3E) on display, which has been positively interpreted by industry insiders. Following his comments on March 19 expressing high expectations for Samsung’s HBM, this move is widely seen as an almost certain indication that Samsung’s HBM will be used in Nvidia’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) accelerators.
Huang’s visit to the Samsung booth at GTC 2024 was made known through Han Jin-man, executive vice president of Samsung Electronics Semiconductor Division America. Executive Vice President Han shared on his social networking service, “Jensen Huang, it’s regrettable we couldn’t meet. Thank you for stopping by our booth,” along with a photo of Jensen Huang’s signature on the physical product of Samsung 12-layer HBM3E. Han expressed his pleasure over Huang’s “stamp of approval” on Samsung’s HBM3E and conveyed anticipation for the next steps between Samsung Semiconductor and Nvidia.
On the day, Huang was known to have toured the booth and left a handwritten signature with a golden pen on the HBM3E 12-layer product, not forgetting to take commemorative photos with Samsung Electronics officials.
The precise meaning of Huang’s “JENSEN APPROVED” message has not been confirmed, but it is interpreted within the industry to mean it “passed a quality test.” One industry insider remarked, “Usually, the tech team signs ‘approved’ on documents, so leaving a signature on the product itself is quite unusual,” suggesting that this could imply that supply is imminent following the quality test passage.
Particularly, Huang’s visit draws industry focus as it followed his statement at the Nvidia GTC 2024 global media event that “We are currently testing Samsung’s HBM. Our expectations are high.”
Competitor SK hynix is known to be the first memory company to supply the 5th generation HBM3E (8-layer/24 GB) DRAM to Nvidia from the end of this month. SK hynix also set up an electric booth at this event, showcasing a sample of the HBM3E 12-layer (36 GB).