Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, is set to meet with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, top executives from Samsung Electronics, and Kakao CEO Jeong Shin-ah in Seoul on Feb. 4 to discuss potential collaborations.
Altman’s visit to South Korea comes after his meetings in Japan on Feb. 3 with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son. Following his stop in S. Korea, he will travel to India, Europe, and the Middle East.
With competition intensifying from companies such as China’s AI startup DeepSeek, Altman is looking to strengthen OpenAI’s global partnerships and attract investments. Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek has matched OpenAI’s performance while spending much less money, raising concerns about growing competition. It added that Altman’s tour reflects his urgency to secure continued investment in OpenAI’s AI models and reinforce their value.
For S. Korean companies, his visit presents an opportunity to explore new business prospects in the AI sector by collaborating with OpenAI, widely regarded as a global leader in the field.
This marks Altman’s third trip to S. Korea. His official reason for visiting is to participate in OpenAI’s “Builder Lab” workshop for AI developers, held for the first time in S. Korea on Feb. 4. The event aims to bring together around 100 developers from local startups and tech firms.
During his brief stay, Altman will also hold private meetings with key corporate leaders from S. Korea. He is expected to discuss high-bandwidth memory (HBM) design for OpenAI’s custom AI chips in his meeting with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won.
OpenAI has been working on custom AI chips for data centers since last year, with Broadcom handling chip design and Taiwan’s TSMC set to manufacture them next year. Since SK Hynix is a major supplier of HBM, securing a stable supply is likely a key agenda item for Altman’s meeting. A tech industry source said OpenAI may be working with SK Hynix because its HBM chips are in short supply.
Altman will also meet with top executives at Samsung Electronics, following his visit to the company’s semiconductor plant in Pyeongtaek, S. Korea, in January last year. The discussion is expected to cover integrating OpenAI’s AI models into Samsung’s products and developing AI-powered devices.
OpenAI is currently working with Jonathan Ive, the former chief designer of Apple’s iPhone, to create a dedicated AI device, and there is speculation within the tech industry that Samsung could manufacture the product. In a recent interview with Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, Altman said AI will fundamentally change how people interact with computers, emphasizing that voice commands will be a key feature of the new device.
Altman is also expected to make an appearance at a press conference hosted by Kakao CEO Jeong Shin-ah on Feb. 4. Kakao plans to unveil specific details about its collaboration with OpenAI during the event. The S. Korean company is set to launch its conversational AI service, “Kanana,” this year.
In Oct. 2024, Kakao announced that it would incorporate not only its in-house AI models but also models from global companies, opening the door to potential cooperation with OpenAI. Anticipation surrounding the partnership has already boosted Kakao’s stock price, which jumped 9% on Feb. 3.
After his visit to S. Korea, Altman will travel to New Delhi on Feb. 6 to meet with investors. He will then attend a panel discussion at the AI seminar at Berlin Technical University on Feb. 7.
On Feb. 10, he will join the AI Summit in Paris, where he will meet Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. Following that, he will head to Dubai for the World Government Summit, where he will meet Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Alibaba Group Holdings Chairman Joseph Tsai.
