Head of ChatGPT to meet with top executives from Samsung, SK

From left are OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Samsung Electronics President Kyung Kye-hyun. Yonhap

Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, will visit Korea on Friday for a meeting with top executives from Samsung and SK, in a move to bolster alliances in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, according to industry officials, Tuesday.

The U.S. entrepreneur is believed to be fine-tuning details of the potential meeting with Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won. OpenAI will discuss the joint development of artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors with the two Korean chipmakers, as part of a strategy to reduce its heavy reliance on Nvidia, the largest AI chip market player in the world.

The AI mogul previously visited Korea last June. But this time, he will reportedly stay here for only around six hours and is expected to spend most of his time in closed-door meetings with the heads or other high-profile officials of the Korean chipmakers.

Altman delivered his keen interest in deepening ties with local startups and chipmakers so OpenAI can develop large language models (LLM) which power ChatGPT. The company unveiled GPT-4 Turbo, its latest model, at the end of last year, and is on track to further upgrade its services. To ensure a smooth expansion, OpenAI needs to secure more state-of-the-art AI chips.

It remains unclear whether Altman and Lee will meet, according to Samsung Electronics. But the head of the AI platform is widely forecast to meet with Kyung Kye-hyun, president of Samsung’s chip unit, and a group of other ranking executives in charge of the memory chip and foundry operations.

“We cannot share specific business schedules of our top management,” an official at Samsung Electronics said.

A spokesman at SK Group also did not confirm whether Chey and Altman will meet.

“Nothing specific has been confirmed over our top management’s schedule with Altman,” an official at SK Group said.

Industry officials said the market for HBM comes with massive growth potential amid the rapid rise of AI here and abroad.

“Demand for HBM chips is on a sharp rise due to their fast data-processing speed, so their usage is becoming more and more diverse,” an official at a local chipmaker said. “HBM chips are particularly crucial for the operation of AI servers.”

SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung also displayed confidence in his company's goal of doubling its market capitalization by taking the lead in the HBM chip market.

“SK hynix will be able to double its market cap to more than 200 trillion won in less than three years, if we launch our products on time,” Kwak told reporters during a recent press conference on the sidelines of this year’s CES tech fair.