Amkor Technology shares surged 17% after hours Thursday as the Arizona-based packaging house locked in a $1.5 billion multi-year pact with Nvidia, securing the US production capacity needed to assemble the GPU giant’s next-generation AI superchips.
The stock surge reflected investor enthusiasm for Amkor’s deepening ties with the world’s most valuable chip designer at a time when packaging capacity is in short supply globally. Nvidia’s prepayment structure, similar to how hyperscalers secure GPU allocations, gives Amkor the financial runway to build out its Arizona campus without waiting for project-by-project revenue to fund construction.
The deal marks the latest in a series of US packaging investments reshaping semiconductor supply chains. Amkor signed a separate 10-year partnership with TSMC in June to expand domestic packaging capacity, and the company also counts AMD among its advanced packaging clients. Intel is simultaneously ramping its own packaging operations at fabs in New Mexico and Arizona.
Advanced packaging has emerged as one of the semiconductor industry’s most constrained production steps. Chips such as Nvidia’s Blackwell and upcoming Vera Rubin architectures rely on stitching multiple silicon dies into a single package using high-bandwidth interconnects — a process dominated by Asian foundries that Nvidia’s prepayment structure is designed to partially offset by building stateside alternatives.
For Nvidia, locking in Amkor capacity near its West Coast design hubs shortens supply chains and reduces exposure to geopolitical risks that could disrupt packaging operations in Taiwan and other Asian semiconductor hubs.
