Korea's tech titans head to U.S. to seek new AI, chip, EV opportunities

Korea’s corporate big shots, including the chiefs of LG, SK and Samsung, are flying to the United States to explore new opportunities in AI, chips and EV batteries as the global tech race heats up.

LG Corp. CEO and Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, right, poses for a photo with Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller during Koo's visit to Silicon Valley in San Francisco. [LG CORP.]

Korea’s corporate big shots, including the chiefs of LG, SK and Samsung, are flying to the United States to explore new opportunities in AI, chips and EV batteries as the global tech race heats up.

LG Corp. CEO and Chairman Koo Kwang-mo completed a four-day visit to the United States through Thursday, the company said Sunday.

The latest visit to Tennessee and Silicon Valley was to inspect the LG companies’ local production sites and discuss new strategies for future businesses involving AI and robotics.

The LG chief visited the U.S. production base of LG Electronics and Ultium Cells, an EV battery joint venture between battery maker LG Energy Solution and General Motors in Tennessee.

In Silicon Valley, where the group’s venture investment subsidiary LG Technology Ventures and LG North American Innovation Center (NOVA) are located, Koo discussed the group-wide strategies for startup investments in a bid to secure technological capabilities in emerging and promising sectors, including AI.

Koo has visited North America every year since 2019, a year after the chairman took the helm, except for two years from 2020 to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Everyone is facing the same volatility in the business environment with the changing market and customer trends, the competitive landscape, and the shifts in trade policies and logistics,” Koo told LG employees in the United States.

“To overcome this, let’s create new opportunities and strive for a fundamental strengthening of competitiveness by reinforcing our product portfolio, supply chain, innovation processes, and localization capabilities to improve yields and quality.”

During his visit to Silicon Valley, Koo met with Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller to discuss AI chip trends and technologies and toured Figure AI, a humanoid robot startup.

SK Inc. Chairman Chey Tae-won and executives of major SK subsidiaries left for the United States on Saturday to meet with Big Tech chiefs, according to the company Friday.

The trip, which came about two months after Chey met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in Silicon Valley, is aimed at seeking new partnerships with U.S. companies in AI businesses.

More recently, the SK chief met with TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei in Taiwan in June.

SK Telecom CEO Ryu Young-sang and SK hynix President Kim Ju-seon, who is in charge of the AI infrastructure, joined Chey on the visit. SK Telecom’s A. — pronounced as A dot — AI service has garnered 4 million users, and SK hynix is a leading supplier of high bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips.

“Chairman Chey is making efforts to establish a global network to sharpen the competitive edge in our semiconductor business, visiting the United States once again after his previous trip in April and visiting Taiwan in June,” an SK spokesperson said.

Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong, left, poses with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Zuckerberg's house in Palo Alto, California, on June 11. [SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS]

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong also met with chief executives of Meta, Amazon and Qualcomm during his two-week U.S. visit earlier this month. During the trip, Lee discussed potential cooperation in AI and virtual reality technology with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]