Seoul [South Korea], June 11 (ANI): OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman is scheduled to visit South Korea this weekend for high-level talks with major tech firms including Samsung Electronics, Kakao, and Naver, as the ChatGPT creator moves to deepen partnerships in artificial intelligence infrastructure, workplace adoption, and consumer services.
According to a news report by The Korea Herald, Altman will arrive in South Korea on Sunday afternoon and begin his main itinerary on Monday. The brief one-night, two-day visit marks his first return to the country since October, when OpenAI secured preliminary agreements with local chipmakers.
The OpenAI chief will make his first major stop at Samsung Electronics' Digital City campus in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. He will address employees of the Device eXperience division, which oversees consumer electronics and mobile device businesses, during a session titled 'DX Insight Talk.'
According to the news report, 'The session comes as Samsung has begun allowing employees to use external generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, Gemini Enterprise and Claude, as part of a broader push to bring AI into daily operations across the group.'
During the session, Altman is expected to address the impact of AI on workplace productivity and corporate work practices. He will also exchange views with Samsung employees on how generative AI could change the way large companies operate.
Following the employee session, Altman will hold separate talks with Samsung Electronics executives, including co-CEOs Jun Young-hyun and Roh Tae-moon.
'Their talks are likely to cover follow-up discussions on OpenAI's Stargate project and Samsung's potential supply of advanced memory chips for large-scale AI data centers. The two sides may also discuss cooperation related to Samsung's use of ChatGPT,' as per the news report.
A meeting with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong appears unlikely because Lee is currently on a business trip to Europe. Industry sources also noted that Altman is unlikely to meet with SK Group officials during this visit.
On Monday morning, Altman will visit Kakao's headquarters in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, to meet with Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a. The discussion will focus on building upon the strategic partnership the two companies announced last year.
The news report stated that closer integration between ChatGPT and KakaoTalk, Korea's dominant messaging app, likely to be a key topic.
'Kakao has been working to add ChatGPT-powered features to KakaoTalk, seeking to leverage the messenger's conversational context to improve its AI functions,' the report stated.
Later on Monday, Altman will travel to Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, to visit Naver. Naver has established its own cloud and data center infrastructure, making it a viable partner for OpenAI in cloud services, data center operations, and broader AI infrastructure.
The ongoing discussions tie directly into OpenAI's broader global infrastructure ambitions. During his previous visit, OpenAI signed separate agreements with Samsung and SK to cooperate on global AI infrastructure, focusing on high-performance, low-power memory chips for Stargate.
'Stargate is a US-based AI infrastructure project led by OpenAI with Oracle and Japan's SoftBank. The project involves up to USD 500 billion in planned investment over four years,' the news report added. 'OpenAI has estimated that Stargate could require high-performance DRAM equivalent to as many as 900,000 wafers per month.'
To meet these demands, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix previously agreed to expand the production of cutting-edge memory chips and develop the high-performance, high-capacity products necessary to run OpenAI's advanced models.
Altman will conclude his scheduled meetings with the heads of the major South Korean technology companies and depart the country on Monday evening. (ANI)
