Anthropic has asked SK Hynix, one of the world’s largest memory chipmakers, for supplies to build its own custom semiconductors, according to SK Group Chairman Chey Tae Won. Chey disclosed the stage alongside Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at an AI summit in San Francisco, calling it remarkable for an AI developer to pursue its own chip ambitions.
Anthropic’s outreach centers on high-bandwidth memory, the specialized chips that support large-scale AI training and inference. The company’s interest in building custom silicon has been building since at least April 2026.
By July, reports surfaced that Anthropic was separately in discussions with Samsung Electronics about 2nm chip manufacturing and advanced packaging — suggesting the company is building a diversified hardware supply chain rather than depending on any single partner.
Following a familiar playbook
Anthropic is walking a path already blazed by Google with its TPU chips and Amazon with its Trainium and Inferentia processors — both companies moved from renting third-party compute to designing custom silicon tuned to their own model architectures. For a company the size of Anthropic, controlling chip design can mean better performance per dollar and less exposure to Nvidia’s pricing and allocation decisions.
Anthropic’s broader infrastructure buildout adds context here: the company launched a $50 billion data center investment plan in November 2025, and its custom chip direction first surfaced publicly in April 2026.
Submitting a formal supply request to SK Hynix marks a shift from early-stage exploration to active execution — the kind of concrete step that signals a chip program is moving toward production rather than staying a long-term research bet.
The investor relationship makes this more interesting
SK Hynix, along with Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology, participated as a strategic investor in Anthropic’s $65 billion Series H round in May 2026, which valued the company at roughly $965 billion.
That means SK Hynix now sits on both sides of the relationship — as an investor in Anthropic’s success and, potentially soon, as a direct supplier to Anthropic’s chip program. SK Hynix completed its own Nasdaq listing on July 10, 2026, at a $26.5 billion valuation, partly on the strength of this kind of strategic positioning across the AI supply chain.
What to watch next
- Whether Anthropic formalizes a manufacturing agreement with Samsung to pair with its SK Hynix memory sourcing.
- How other frontier labs without existing chip programs respond competitively to this vertical-integration trend.
- Whether custom AI chips from foundation model companies start reducing their dependence on Nvidia GPUs over the next 12-18 months.
Helpful Sources
- SK Chair Says Anthropic Asked for Supplies to Make Its Own Chips — Bloomberg
- SK chair says Anthropic asked for supplies to make its own chips — Fortune
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