Samsung Electro-Mechanics to supply NVIDIA AI substrates; Tesla line deal reported

Samsung Electro-Mechanics said in a press release on Oct 21 that it has signed a strategic partnership with NVIDIA under which the two will jointly invest in dedicated ABF package-substrate lines at its Sejong and Busan plants, with deliveries starting in 2026 and volumes rising at a double-digit annual rate; by 2028 NVIDIA's allocation is expected to be a significant portion of the Korean company's total annual package-substrate capacity.

NVIDIA said in its own release the same day that substrate agreements with IBIDEN, Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Unimicron should together lift its substrate capacity 2.5 times over three years; neither company disclosed an amount.

Maeil Business Newspaper reported on Oct 22, citing industry sources, that NVIDIA will put in about KRW 2.6 trillion and that Tesla has separately committed about KRW 1.1 trillion toward a dedicated Sejong line, in return for FC-BGA supply from 2029 to 2033 for its autonomous cars and the Optimus humanoid; Reuters carried the report, and Tesla and Samsung Electro-Mechanics have not confirmed the Tesla figures.

The Sejong expansion itself is on record: a Sept 28 DART filing commits KRW 4.27 trillion to package-substrate capacity there through May 31, 2028, equal to 43.6% of the company's equity. MEKAWIRE context: if the Tesla report is accurate, its share would cover about 26% of that Sejong programme (1.1 / 4.27), and it would make Samsung Electro-Mechanics the second Korean component maker this week to tie into the robot-compute supply chain, after LG Innotek's robot-vision work with NVIDIA (story).

Tesla said on Oct 21 that Optimus production has begun at Fremont without giving unit numbers (story); background on NVIDIA's robotics stack is in our NVIDIA explainer.