Following Jensen Huang, Sam Altman to Visit Korea on June 14 for Meetings with Samsung, Naver, and Kakao (Comprehensive)

Sam Altman to Visit Korea on June 14-15
Lecture at Samsung Electronics Followed by Meeting with Executives
Discussions on Collaboration with Naver and Kakao

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, will visit South Korea on June 14 and is scheduled to meet with Samsung Electronics, Naver, and Kakao. As Altman promised cooperation on the massive "Stargate Project" worth 700 trillion won with domestic companies last year, there is growing attention on the possibility of further collaboration during this visit.

According to industry sources on June 11, CEO Altman will arrive in Korea on the afternoon of June 14 and the following day, June 15, will visit Samsung Electronics' Digital City in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, to participate in the "DX Insight Talk" event with executives and employees from the DX (Device eXperience) division. He will deliver a lecture on "The Era of Working with AI," which will be broadcast live online for all employees, including those in the DX division.

At the event, CEO Altman is expected to give a lecture on the changes brought about by advances in AI technology and the direction of AI-based work innovation. The event coincides with Samsung Electronics' official introduction of three external generative AIs—ChatGPT, Gemini Enterprise, and Claude—for employees in the DX division from June 12. He is also expected to share his thoughts with Samsung Electronics staff on improving work productivity and transforming working methods using AI.

During this visit, CEO Altman is expected to meet with key Samsung Electronics executives, including Co-CEOs Jun Younghyun and Roh Taemoon. The two parties are likely to hold in-depth follow-up discussions on memory supply for the previously agreed "Stargate Project" and the adoption of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Sam Altman, CEO and founder of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is attending the "Kakao Media Day" held at Plaza Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, on February 4 last year. Photo by Jinhyung Kang

Later, on the morning of June 15, Altman will visit Kakao Pangyo Agit in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, to meet with Kakao CEO Shin Jeongah. The two sides are expected to focus discussions on strengthening the integration between ChatGPT and KakaoTalk, Kakao's flagship messaging service. Kakao is currently working to incorporate ChatGPT into KakaoTalk to enhance its features.

On the same day, he is also scheduled to visit Naver in Seongnam. As Naver has built its own cloud and data center infrastructure, the visit is expected to serve as an opportunity to explore new business collaborations with OpenAI.

CEO Altman visited South Korea twice last year, in February and October, meeting with President Lee Jaemyung, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jaeyong, and SK Group Chairman Chey Taewon to discuss cooperation on the Stargate Project. At that time, Altman signed letters of intent (LOIs) for mutual cooperation with Samsung and SK Group respectively to build global AI core infrastructure, establishing strategic partnerships.

This visit, which comes about eight months after his last trip in October last year, has drawn attention to what additional collaborations may be made with domestic companies. The Stargate Project is a large-scale initiative in which OpenAI, together with American software and cloud company Oracle and Japanese investment firm SoftBank, will build massive AI data centers in the United States, with an investment of 500 billion dollars (approximately 726 trillion won) over four years. OpenAI anticipates a monthly demand for 900,000 wafers of high-performance DRAM for the Stargate Project.

To meet this demand, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have agreed to expand production of cutting-edge memory chips and to introduce high-performance, high-capacity products needed to run OpenAI's advanced AI models.

Meanwhile, after completing his main schedule in Korea on June 15, CEO Altman is expected to depart the country that evening.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.