Samsung doesn't just want phones. It's eyeing an AI chip order from Anthropic

You know Samsung not only as a phone manufacturer but also as a giant chip factory. And it’s this role that a fresh report from The Information concerns: the company Anthropic, which is behind the Claude AI model, is reportedly negotiating with the Koreans about manufacturing its own artificial intelligence chip. Let’s emphasize right away that this is a very early stage — but even so, it’s an interesting piece of the puzzle showing where the entire industry is headed.

Why a custom chip? Because of Nvidia

The reason is simple and its name is Nvidia. According to estimates, it holds around 74% of the artificial intelligence chip market, meaning the prices for the entire industry hang on the lips of one supplier. Developing custom silicon tailored to one’s own models is one of the few ways to break free from this dependence — and at the same time, cut costs that grow with running massive AI models. Anthropic is not the first, moreover. Its rival OpenAI last month introduced its own inference chip with Broadcom, named Jalapeño, which is said to offer better performance per watt than the competition.

Samsung as a factory, not a phone manufacturer

Why Samsung? According to leaks, Anthropic is attracted by its 2nm manufacturing process and advanced chip packaging. The fact that Samsung previously participated as a strategic partner in a large investment round for Anthropic also plays a role — and as the only participating memory manufacturer, it has its own chip manufacturing facilities. For the Koreans, this would be much more than just one order: a prestigious AI client is exactly what they are trying to use to catch up with the dominant Taiwanese TSMC, which has long controlled high-end chip manufacturing.

A signed customer is not yet a finished chip

However, before we make this a done deal, a good dose of caution is in order. No design or contract exists yet, and Anthropic is not officially commenting on Samsung — only reiterating that its backbone remains a mix of chips from Amazon, Google, and Nvidia. Furthermore, the negotiations are not exclusive; Microsoft and British startup Fractile are reportedly also in play. A signal that the company is more serious about this than mere contemplation is the recent hiring of an engineer who previously helped build a custom chip at OpenAI.

For us as users, this is more of a background story, but not insignificant. It shows how fiercely manufacturing capacities are being fought over today — and the same hunger for memory and chips is reflected in the prices of the electronics we carry in our pockets.

Will it benefit the market if every AI company builds its own chip, or is it just another dependency?

Source: The Information, TechCrunch, Reuters