[Exclusive] AMD CEO Lisa Su Holds Private Meeting with Ha Jungwoo... Discusses AI Semiconductor Cooperation with Korea

First Visit in Seven Months: High-Level Government Meetings

Focus on Discussions to Develop an Open AI Ecosystem

Ministry of Science and ICT Pursues a Global 'Reference Model'

Lisa Su, CEO of AMD—often regarded as a key rival to Nvidia in the global artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market—held a series of meetings with senior officials from the Korean government on October 7th. Attention is now focused on whether this will help diversify the domestic AI computing infrastructure supply chain, which has been heavily centered around Nvidia, and accelerate discussions on building an open AI ecosystem.

Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, moving for a private meeting with Ha Jung-woo, Senior Vice-Chairman of the National AI Strategy Committee, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul on the morning of the 7th. Photo by Minyoung Cha

On the morning of the 7th at around 8:30 a.m., CEO Su had a private meeting with Ha Jung-woo, Vice Chairman of the National AI Strategy Committee, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul. When asked by reporters if there had been progress in collaboration with the Korean government since last March, CEO Su did not respond. This visit marks her first trip to Korea in about seven months since March.

When asked whether the meeting would cover specific product purchases or plans to introduce AI semiconductors from AMD, Vice Chairman Ha stated, "We have not yet discussed any concrete details, and I think we can talk more after meeting in person."

Vice Chairman Ha was also cautious when asked if discussions since CEO Su’s visit in March had made substantial progress, saying, "The Ministry of Science and ICT, which is the main implementing body, has been leading the discussions. For my part, this meeting is more of a routine greeting, so it is difficult to comment in detail." When asked if the cooperation could be considered to have reached a more concrete phase, he replied, "We will have to see this time. Nothing has been decided yet."

Industry observers are closely watching whether CEO Su’s visit will trigger AMD’s AI semiconductor business collaboration in Korea to move beyond the current memorandum of understanding (MOU) level and advance to actual infrastructure construction and product supply.

AMD and the Ministry of Science and ICT signed an "MOU on Cooperation for the AI Semiconductor Ecosystem" in July and agreed to expand collaboration to build AI computing infrastructure. At that time, AMD proposed to serve as Korea’s "full-stack sovereign AI partner," offering support not only for high-performance computing products such as CPUs and GPUs but also for open-source software like ROCm, workforce development, joint research, and global ecosystem partnerships. CEO Su emphasized at the time, "We will bring together AMD’s full range of high-performance computing products, open software, and global ecosystem partnerships."

AMD is also working to establish an "AI Center of Excellence (AI CoE)" in Korea within this year. AMD Korea has commented that selecting Korea as the first site in Asia for an AI CoE, without significant prior hardware investments, is an unprecedented move. With less than three months to the targeted deadline, time is running short.

The Korean government’s collaboration with AMD is seen as an effort to diversify the supply chains for AI infrastructure, which are largely concentrated around specific firms such as Nvidia, and as a strategic move to expand the base for domestic AI semiconductor utilization.

AMD is promoting an "open and heterogeneous AI ecosystem" in Korea—one that enables the use of AMD’s CPUs and GPUs alongside Korea’s neural processing units (NPUs) and various types of software. Simultaneously, AMD is focusing on expanding ROCm (Radeon Open Compute), its open-source GPU computing platform. For AMD, securing a developer and corporate ecosystem is just as crucial as increasing GPU sales.

In this respect, Korea holds high strategic value, as it boasts major AI consumer enterprises, a world-class memory supply chain, domestic AI semiconductor companies, and strong manufacturing and robotics industries. For the Korean government, reducing reliance on a single enterprise is a benefit, while for AMD, Korea represents an opportunity to secure a new, large-scale customer base for ROCm—making the partnership mutually attractive.

On the same day, CEO Su also met with officials from the Ministry of Science and ICT and with executives from domestic AI semiconductor companies. After a separate meeting with Ryu Je-myeong, the Second Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, CEO Su attended a roundtable starting at 9:30 a.m. with participants from Korean AI semiconductor companies. Fourteen companies took part in the event, including Rebellions, FuriosaAI, HyperAccel, DeepX, Mobilint, MangoBoost, Panacea, Dinotitia, Moreh, NotaAI, RebelUp, FADU, ELICE Group, and Upstage.

On this day, the Ministry of Science and ICT also announced plans to connect a heterogeneous computing infrastructure utilizing AMD’s CPUs and GPUs alongside Korean AI semiconductors to domestic demonstration projects, and to develop this as a "reference model" usable in global markets.

In the afternoon, CEO Su is scheduled to attend and meet with Korean gamers at "AMD Gamer Day," hosted by AMD at Dragon City in Yongsan, Seoul. Jack Huin, Senior Vice President of AMD, is also set to attend, and a Q&A session with the press is expected to follow.

AMD is a global semiconductor company that designs both CPUs and GPUs. In 2025, AMD achieved annual sales of USD 34.6 billion, and thanks to increased demand for EPYC server CPUs and Instinct GPUs, its data center division recorded USD 16.6 billion in sales.

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