Altman Staying 6 Hours in Korea... Busy Schedule with Chey Tae-won and Kyung Kye-hyun

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is expected to spend about six hours in South Korea on the 26th, holding a series of private meetings with Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, and Kyung Kye-hyun, President and CEO of Samsung Electronics as well as head of the Semiconductor (DS) division.

According to reports from the business community and international media on the 24th, Altman will arrive in the morning on the 26th and meet with Chairman Chey and President Kyung. This visit marks Altman’s first trip to South Korea in seven months since he was invited by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups last June. It is reported that Altman plans to keep all his schedules during the six hours in South Korea private. He is expected to meet with Chairman Chey and President Kyung for about one to two hours to exchange views on AI technology development and supply, which have recently become hot topics in the global market. The business community is paying close attention to whether Korean companies can join the ‘AI semiconductor alliance’ that Altman is building through this meeting.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who sparked the generative artificial intelligence (AI) boom with ChatGPT. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

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Taiwanese media outlet ‘China Times’ reported the day before, "OpenAI CEO Altman will visit Korea this week without visiting TSMC. Rumors about confidential projects are spreading around." Following Altman’s mention of ‘nuclear fusion energy’ as a new energy source necessary for AI training and operation at the Davos Forum, which attracted global attention, his subsequent visit to Korea has further heightened worldwide interest.

Altman is reportedly planning semiconductor supply chain cooperation with SK. He is expected to have detailed discussions with Chairman Chey on this matter. Analysts suggest that the remarkable growth of SK Siltron recently played a part. SK Siltron, the only wafer manufacturer in Korea, has invested over 1 trillion won in the silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor market, anticipating its growth.

The meeting between President Kyung and Altman is expected to focus on technological cooperation. It is reported that executives from Samsung Electronics’ DS division, who may collaborate with OpenAI, will also attend the meeting between President Kyung and Altman. The business community expects the two companies to discuss topics such as the production of artificial general intelligence (AGI) chips and the supply of memory semiconductors like high-bandwidth memory (HBM). They are also likely to exchange views on whether OpenAI and Samsung Electronics can join forces to produce AI semiconductors that surpass NVIDIA.

The conversation may also start with NVIDIA’s graphics processing units (GPUs), which are a shared interest of both parties. After attending CES 2024, President Kyung wrote on social media on the 15th, "When ChatGPT appeared and public cloud providers reduced investments in normal servers while increasing investments in GPU servers, I thought it was due to limited budgets and believed that investments in normal servers would resume over time. However, that did not happen." He added that this trend signifies "a fundamental change in computing." President Kyung and Altman are likely to discuss solutions to GPU-related issues as well as ways to cooperate on AI technology.

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