Stock prices diverge amid Google AI-driven TPU boom…Samsung Electronics smiles, SK Hynix cries

Korea Economic Daily

Summary

Amid analyses suggesting that Google's TPU has the potential to change the AI industry landscape, Samsung Electronics was reported to have risen 0.91% as a TPU beneficiary.
KB Securities said Samsung Electronics holds the No. 1 memory supply share to Broadcom, which handles Google's TPU design and production, and is expected to be the biggest beneficiary.
Meanwhile, SK Hynix, a stock related to NVIDIA GPUs, fell 2.31%, and it was reported that dependence on NVIDIA GPU supply chains is expected to gradually shrink.

Stock prices of shares related to Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) and NVIDIA's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) are diverging. This follows analyses suggesting that Gemini 3.0, the artificial intelligence (AI) service launched based on Google's self-developed TPU, has the potential to change the AI industry landscape.

As of 9:55 a.m. on the 25th in the KOSPI market, Samsung Electronics, considered a beneficiary of TPU, is trading at 99,800 won, up 0.91%. Socket manufacturers that test high-performance AI chips, ISC and Rino Gongup, are also up 0.58% and 0.63%, respectively. Isu Petasys, a printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer that counts Google among its customers, is down more than 5%. This is interpreted as profit-taking following a recent short-term surge. SK Hynix, considered an NVIDIA-related stock, is trading at 507,000 won, down 2.31%.

On the day, KB Securities published an analysis report stating that Samsung Electronics is the biggest beneficiary of Google's TPU. The reason is that Samsung Electronics supplies a large amount of memory to Broadcom, which is in charge of Google's TPU design and production. Kim Dong-won, a researcher at KB Securities, said, "In the case of Broadcom, which is in charge of Google's TPU design and production, Samsung Electronics records the No. 1 memory supply share, so it is expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the future expansion of the Google TPU ecosystem."

Some predict that dependence on NVIDIA GPU supply chains will gradually shrink. Overnight, NVIDIA, the AI bellwether, was the only one among the 'Magnificent 7' — referring to seven giant tech companies — to rise by more than 2%. Alphabet, Google's parent company, rose by more than 1% on the possibility of Google TPU expansion, and Meta jumped 3.78%.

TPUs were developed for repeated matrix (tensor) operations in deep learning training and inference processes. As unnecessary circuits for graphics processing or general-purpose computing have been removed, they are characterized by higher power efficiency. Google's TPUs are also cheaper than GPUs. TPU prices are reported to be about half the level of NVIDIA's GPUs for AI.

Eunhyuk Ryu, reporter ehryu@hankyung.com