SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won responds to questions from reporters at the group's exhibition pavilion for CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Wednesday (local time). Courtesy of SK Group

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won expressed confidence in SK hynix's bargaining power against Nvidia, saying that the chipmaker's development of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has already outpaced the speed requested by the U.S. computing giant.

He made the remarks during a press conference with Korean media at the CES 2025 tech trade show in Las Vegas, Wednesday (local time), confirming his meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the exhibition's venue that day.

"Although Nvidia previously asked us to speed up the development of HBM, the recent speed of our development has been surpassing the client's requested pace," the SK Group chairman said.

HBM is a crucial component for graphics processing units (GPUs) that power generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

Amid the increasing use of AI in everyday life, SK hynix has remained a major supplier of HBM to Nvidia, while Samsung Electronics has been struggling to get its HBM chips to pass qualification tests for the U.S. firm's AI processors.

A day before Chey's press conference, the Nvidia CEO also stressed Samsung's need to engineer a new design, although he expressed optimism about the Korean firm's efforts to supply its HBM to his company.

However, Huang seemed unaware that both Samsung and SK produced graphic memory chips when he erroneously stated that instead of Samsung's graphic memory chip, Micron Technology's G7 memory chip would be used in his company's GeForce RTX 50 series GPU.

Although the misstatement triggered concerns among investors about the possibility that the Korean semiconductor companies may lag behind their U.S. rival, the SK Group chairman defended the Nvidia CEO, saying that it is difficult for top executives to memorize all the details about their products.

The Nvidia CEO later corrected his remarks, saying that Samsung is among the multiple suppliers of memory chips for his company's new graphic card.

"To be honest, Nvidia just needs to be good at understanding computing and developing the most efficient solutions for computing," Chey said.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, front row right, listens to an explanation at Samsung Electronics' exhibition pavilion for CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Wednesday (local time), along with Samsung Electronics CEO and Vice Chairman Han Jong-hee, front row left. Yonhap

The chairman added that he also exchanged opinions with Huang regarding physical AI that enables autonomous machines to perceive, understand and perform complex actions in the real world.

When asked about his impression of this year's CES, the chairman said that the exhibition showed the soaring use of AI in all types of devices, including robots. He also introduced SK Group's AI and data center business during his visit to the world's largest tech fair for the third straight year.

In response to a question about the group's strategies toward Donald Trump's return to the White House, Chey maintained a cautious stance, saying that many of the incoming U.S. government's policies remain unknown.

He also reiterated that there is no reason for his company to abandon the Chinese market, despite the recent withdrawals of many Korean companies from China, amid the intensifying political and trade disputes between the world's two largest economies.