Samsung Electronics executives to meet with OpenAI CEO

OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman, left, and Kyung Kye-hyun, head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions Division

Samsung Electronics Co. executives from its semiconductor business are set to meet with OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman, who is visiting South Korea.

According to multiple industry sources on Monday, Kyung Kye-hyun, head of Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions Division, and other management officials will meet with Altman during his visit later in the week.

Executives in other various divisions, including Memory Business, System LSI Business, and Foundry Business, where collaboration with OpenAI is possible, will also attend.

The presence of executives from various business units reflects Samsung Electronics’ determination to take the lead in the AI semiconductor market.

Typically, when Samsung Electronics holds business meetings, only a few relevant personnel from the business unit attend with the CEO. But it is interpreted that the management is actively participating because there is business relevance across the DS division with OpenAI.

The meeting between the two companies is expected to involve discussions on producing AI chips that can compete with Nvidia Corp., the current leader in the AI semiconductor market.

Key agenda items are anticipated to include producing artificial general intelligence (AGI) chips, supplying memory semiconductors such as high-bandwidth memory, AI semiconductor chip design technology, and investment funds for AI semiconductor production.

Samsung Electronics has recently taken active measures to respond to the onset of the AI era by hiring Woo Dong-hyuk, a senior developer known to have been one of three initial designers of Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) platform.