Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has arrived in South Korea for a high-stakes round of meetings that could shape the company’s chip and memory strategy for the next wave of AI and PC products. With supply constraints still squeezing the industry, Qualcomm appears to be moving quickly to lock in the manufacturing capacity and memory volume it needs to stay competitive.
Local reports say Amon visited on April 21 and is expected to sit down with senior leaders at Samsung Foundry and SK Hynix. The focus is straightforward but extremely important: securing additional production capacity for Qualcomm’s growing AI and PC ambitions at a time when advanced node wafer supply and high-demand memory are both tight.
A major topic on the table is Samsung Foundry’s SF2 2nm process. Qualcomm is reportedly exploring plans to build next-generation chips on Samsung’s 2nm technology, including a future flagship Snapdragon application processor often referred to as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen2. The reports indicate that design work tied to these plans is already complete, which suggests the conversation is shifting from “can this be done?” to “how soon can we manufacture, and in what volume?”
If Qualcomm and Samsung finalize an agreement, it would mark a notable shift. Qualcomm has leaned heavily on TSMC for its most advanced production in recent years, and a return of leading-edge orders to Samsung would be significant—especially because it would represent Qualcomm diversifying its manufacturing partners again at a moment when supply security matters as much as performance.
Beyond foundry capacity, Qualcomm’s CEO is also expected to meet with SK Hynix executives to discuss memory supply. DRAM availability remains a pressure point across the industry, and LPDDR memory in particular has become increasingly contested as AI systems and data center platforms expand their use of high-performance, power-efficient memory. SK Hynix has also been pushing new LPDDR5X-based solutions aimed at next-gen computing platforms, underscoring just how central LPDDR has become in the broader AI hardware race.
For Qualcomm, LPDDR is a critical ingredient in both smartphone and PC system-on-chip designs, which makes supply discussions with SK Hynix especially strategic. Any additional allocation of DRAM and LPDDR could help Qualcomm stabilize production plans and better meet demand across multiple product lines.
The timing of Amon’s Korea trip is also notable. Computex is only about a month away, and Qualcomm’s CEO is slated to deliver an opening keynote. That stage is often where major PC and AI roadmaps become clearer, so securing manufacturing and memory commitments now could help Qualcomm enter the event with stronger momentum—and a more confident story about its ability to deliver next-generation products at scale.
