The electronics group Samsung has drawn a billion -dollar order ashore for its recently weakening semiconductor production. The South Koreans should be for the electric car maker Tesla The company announced the next generation AI chip on Monday in Seoul. The agreement has a value of $ 16.5 billion (around 14 billion euros) and runs by the end of 2033. Samsung is to manufacture the AI6 chip in his new work in Texas.
Samsung’s shares increased by up to 7 percent on Monday and thus reached a high since September last year.
Musk wants to monitor production
Samsung had already announced the signing of a $ 16.5 billion contract at the weekend, but without mentioning the customer’s name. Tesla boss Elon Musk (54) then confirmed the deal on Monday morning on its social media platform X.
“Samsung’s huge new factory in Texas will produce the next generation of the next generation for Tesla,” Musk commented on the agreement. The strategic importance of this can hardly be overestimated. The $ 16.5 billion $ 16 are also the “absolute minimum”, he continued. The actual performance is likely to be many times higher.
According to Musk, Samsung has also allowed Tesla to help optimize production. The billionaire himself wants to monitor production.
Samsung has lost market shares in TSMC
Samsung is currently producing the AI4 and also supplies Tesla with it. The successor AI5 becomes the Taiwanese competitor TSMC manufacture for Samsung; He has just completed its development. This chip is to be produced in Taiwan and later in Arizona. Tesla needs the AI chips for the software, which is intended to enable autonomous driving.
Samsung has lost importance in chip production and is fighting with declining profits. South Korea’s largest electronics group produces both its own memory chips and semiconductors in the customer order and, especially in the production, has difficulty getting enough orders to fully load its capacities. The completion and commissioning of his new factory in Texas, for example, was last postponed to 2026.
In contrast, the leading chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing CO (TSMC) can hardly save himself from orders and, despite the expansion of his capacity, is unable to meet demand. TSMC dominates the manufacturing market worldwide and, according to the market researcher Trendforce, came to a market share of 67.6 percent in the first quarter. The proportion of Samsung, on the other hand, dropped from 8.1 percent in the previous quarter to 7.7 percent.