Mark Zuckerberg possibly eying Meta-LG partnership during Korea trip

The tech company's CEO may pursue cooperation on an extended reality headset while in the country this week.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the tech giant's Connect developer conference Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in the company based in California. [AP]

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will meet with LG Electronics executives to discuss possible cooperation on the development of extended reality (XR) headsets during his planned visit to Korea this week.

Local media outlets have suspected that the American tech mogul could contact the leaders of LG Electronics on Feb. 28 and those at Samsung Electronics on a separate occasion.

Under the potential partnership, LG could be focused on developing hardware while Meta will be primarily responsible for integrating its AI system into the device, according to the reports, adding that the joint endeavor could extend to the appliances of LG Electronics being fitted with Meta’s AI technology.

A spokesperson at LG said that both companies engaged in a discussion on a possible partnership on XR devices, but declined to confirm any upcoming meeting.

Zuckerberg is scheduled to meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol in the upcoming visit, an itinerary item that a presidential office source confirmed through Yonhap News Agency.

If the partnership between the two companies materializes, the global race for the immersive headset market will take shape centered around Meta-LG, Samsung Electronics-Google and Apple.

Samsung Electronics, in collaboration with Google and Qualcomm, is working on an XR headset expected to compete with the $3,499 Vision Pro mixed reality headset that Apple unveiled last June. Qualcomm will engineer the headset's processor, while Samsung will be in charge of the hardware and Google will handle the software.

LG Electronics CEO William Cho openly mentioned during this year’s CES that the company is zeroing in on the XR sector with investment allocation and organizing structure.

The CEO said that the company will invest 10 trillion won ($8 billion) this year, two trillion won of which will be spent on M&A deals, possibly in the XR business.

Its Home Entertainment (HE) division will be in charge of running the new business.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]