OpenAI CEO Plans to Visit Seoul in Search of Chip Partners
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January 22 news: According to the latest reports, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman plans to visit Seoul this week to seek partnerships with SK Group to meet the growing demand for semiconductors while reducing reliance on Nvidia, the leader in AI chips from the United States.
Image credit: AI-generated image, licensed by Midjourney Altman's visit marks his first trip since being invited by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups in June last year. During this period, the OpenAI CEO has expressed strong interest in collaborating with domestic chip manufacturers to develop AI accelerators. He will meet with Korean business leaders in Seoul and is expected to discuss AI chip partnerships with major semiconductor industry players. Through a meeting with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, he aims to establish a stable memory supply chain with SK.
Industry sources indicate that SK hynix, the chip manufacturing arm of SK Group, is rapidly strengthening its dominance in the high-bandwidth memory market. In 2022, the memory chip maker became the first company to supply its fourth-generation HBM product, HBM3, to Nvidia. Mass production of HBM3E is expected to begin in the first half of this year.
Insiders suggest: "If the two companies agree to enhance AI cooperation, SK would gain a strong AI company as its major client, while OpenAI would secure stable product procurement to compete with Nvidia." However, SK Group has not officially confirmed the meeting between the two CEOs in Seoul. Industry sources indicate that OpenAI may collaborate with Samsung Electronics. As a U.S.-based AI company, OpenAI needs to strengthen cooperation across multiple areas—from wafer fabrication and packaging to high-bandwidth memory—to produce sufficient high-performance semiconductors for ChatGPT. An anonymous source stated: "Samsung Electronics is highly regarded in the AI chip market due to its capabilities in wafer fabrication and memory semiconductor manufacturing. Therefore, OpenAI may not only seek technical collaboration with Samsung but also explore investment opportunities with this tech giant."
Meanwhile, reports suggest that Sam Altman is preparing a new project aimed at developing chips required for training and building AI models, as well as the factories needed to manufacture these chips. He is in discussions with Middle Eastern investors and chip manufacturers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), to launch a new chip venture. According to the Financial Times, Altman is negotiating with investors from the United Arab Emirates to fund this ambitious project, which focuses on developing chips for AI model training and collaborating with TSMC for production.