Tech12 days ago
Nvidia And SK Group Announce Partnership To Build World's Largest Memory, Immediately Forget Where They Put It
Multi-billion dollar deal to produce next-generation High-Bandwidth Memory officially signed; both parties later found wandering parking garage looking for the pen
By ].Nvidia Corporation and South Korea's SK Group finalized a landmark multi-billion-dollar strategic partnership Thursday to secure the global supply of next-generation High-Bandwidth Memory, or HBM, only to allegedly misplace the signed agreement within forty-five minutes of the closing handshake. Sources close to the negotiation say the document was last seen near a complimentary fruit platter at the Nvidia campus in Santa Clara.
"We are incredibly excited about this partnership," said Nvidia's Chief Memory Officer Darrell Gundstrom, who does not exist and whose title was invented six weeks ago specifically for this announcement. "The HBM3E chip will power the AI supercomputers of tomorrow, assuming we can remember where we parked them." Mr. Gundstrom then excused himself to look for his glasses, which were on his head.
The deal, valued at somewhere between $4 billion and "a lot, definitely a lot, we wrote it down somewhere," will see SK Group supply high-bandwidth memory at a rate of several million units per year, all of which will be shipped in boxes clearly labeled DO NOT STACK, which everyone will immediately stack. SK Group's Vice Chairman of Remembering Things, Park Joon-hyuk, confirmed the terms via a press release that was accidentally sent to a Domino's franchise in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"Korea has always been a world leader in memory," Mr. Park told reporters through a translator who was also, separately, on the phone. "It is ironic, yes, that neither side can locate the contract. But we remember the spirit of the agreement, which is the important thing. Also we remember it was very long. Very official looking." He then produced a Wendy's receipt from his jacket pocket and said, "This is not it, but hold on to it anyway."
Wall Street responded enthusiastically, with Nvidia shares climbing 4.7% before investors realized they had confused Nvidia with a candle company of similar name and corrected accordingly. Analysts at the firm Burkholter Senz & Associates issued a bullish note describing the HBM partnership as "the most significant moment in semiconductor history that can be confirmed by at least two people who were definitely in the room." The note went on to describe the memory chips as being so powerful they could, in theory, remember things on behalf of humans, "which at this point," the note concluded, "would be a service."
As of press time, the signed contract had been located inside a miniature refrigerator in Building C, where it had been placed next to a La Croix and a very old yogurt by an intern who described the decision as "seeming fine at the time." Both Nvidia and SK Group have confirmed they will now produce enough high-bandwidth memory to power the next generation of artificial intelligence, run continent-scale data centers, and, executives hope, finally help someone in leadership remember to validate parking.
