OpenAI's Sam Altman Likely to Visit Korea This Week... Expectations for Collaboration with Samsung and SK
by Kim HyeongMin
Published 22 Jan.2024 19:25(KST)
Likely to stay about 6 hours during mid-to-late week visit to Korea
Possible meetings with Chey Tae-won and Kyung Gye-hyun
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the developer of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) 'ChatGPT,' is expected to visit South Korea this week to strengthen networks for AI chip production.
According to industry sources on the 22nd, CEO Altman is scheduled to visit South Korea in the mid to late part of this week, staying for about six hours to discuss AI semiconductor development and supply measures with domestic semiconductor companies. This visit marks his first trip to South Korea in seven months since June last year. There is also speculation about possible meetings with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Samsung Electronics President Kyung Kye-hyun during his stay.
Accordingly, the industry expects discussions to focus on strengthening cooperation regarding memory semiconductors essential in the AI era, such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and AI semiconductor design technologies.
During his previous visit last year, CEO Altman held a meeting with domestic startups and stated, "I am very interested in deep tech companies," adding, "I want to meet many platform developers, visit many companies, and collaborate on chip development."
Currently, CEO Altman is pushing for the development of proprietary AI semiconductors to reduce dependence on Nvidia, the US semiconductor company dominating the AI semiconductor market.
OpenAI plans to release a major upgrade to its large language model (LLM), GPT-4, this year, which will require a large volume of expensive AI semiconductors.
According to Bloomberg News, CEO Altman is discussing funding with AI company G42 from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Japan's SoftBank Group, which owns the UK semiconductor design firm ARM, and others for AI chip production. The UK Financial Times (FT) also reported that CEO Altman is in talks about funding with Tahnoun bin Zayed, National Security Advisor of the UAE and brother of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who owns G42.
CEO Altman is also reportedly negotiating with TSMC, the world's largest foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturer), regarding AI semiconductor production.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.