Legendary chip designer could use Samsung for 2nm AI chips

Samsung is one of the few companies globally capable of producing chips using advanced process nodes, such as 2nm and 3nm. Legendary chip designer Jim Keller, who has worked at AMD, Apple, and Tesla, is currently in discussions with Samsung Electronics to fabricate their company's AI chips utilizing the South Korean firm's 2nm process node.

Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent, revealed in an interview with Nikkei Asia that their company is in touch with Rapidus, Samsung Foundry, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for their upcoming 2nm AI accelerator chip. They said Intel has a lot of work to do before it can be considered to make future AI chips for Tenstorrent. Intel recently started courting outside firms with its 18A (2nm class) process node.

Samsung Foundry, the semiconductor contract chip manufacturing division of Samsung Electronics, is said to have recently started the mass production of the Exynos 2600 using its 2nm process node. It could end up being the world's first smartphone chip made using a 2nm process.

TSMC is the undeniable leader in the advanced process chip manufacturing segment. However, Samsung is trying hard to emerge as the obvious choice alternative to its Taiwanese rival. If it can manage to show that the Exynos 2600 has no critical issues, several firms like AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm could offer at least some 2nm chip contracts to Samsung.

The South Korean firm has already bagged 2nm chip orders from Ambarella, DeepX, Preferred Networks (PFN), and Tesla.

The Exynos 2600 is likely to debut early next year and could be found inside the Galaxy S26 Pro. This chip is expected to utilise ARM’s C1 series CPU cores, an AMD RDNA-based Xclipse 950 GPU, a powerful NPU, and an advanced ISP. It may also include an integrated 5G modem and low-Earth orbit satellite connectivity.