Samsung strike has lessons for AI-focused Big Tech
Also read: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event Highlights: Galaxy Ultra Watch & Watch 7 launched Beyond the tech sector, the threat of AI to livelihoods brought Hollywood production to a standstill last year as actors and writers went on a high-profile strike. It’s not unheard of for tech companies to team up with labour unions. Industry leader Microsoft announced late last year that it was forming a historic alliance with a coalition of 60 unions to discuss how AI will impact workers.
It’s a rare example of a tech giant showing foresight and responsibility over how the products it’s creating could impact real people’s employment prospects. At Samsung, rank-and-file chip assembly line workers are also now seeing the AI boom make their company richer, and are seeking a clearer method of tying bonus payments to operating profits, among other demands. Samsung last Friday posted a 15-fold increase in profits, buoyed by a rebound in demand for memory chips for data centres and AI development.
These rosy earnings come after a difficult last year for its memory chip division. The work stoppage at Samsung could not come at a more consequential time for the company: The one-time leader lags domestic rival SK Hynix in making high-bandwidth memory chips that can be used for AI. While SK Hynix has benefited from being the main supplier of these semiconductors to AI leader Nvidia, Samsung has yet to get its own HBM chips to pass Nvidia’s qualification checks, and it cannot afford any missteps.
SK Hynix shares have rallied more than 60% since the beginning of the year, while Samsung stock is up roughly 10%. Some union representatives at Samsung have criticized the company for failing to get ahead of the high-end memory chip demand. These
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