Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is in South Korea to meet with leaders in the semiconductor industry, including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, among others. His visit is reported to be primarily focused on exploring potential partnerships for an AI chip production venture he has been working on for some time. bloombergThis was reported by an unofficial source familiar with the matter.
The head of OpenAI arrived in Seoul on Thursday. Altman’s goals in Korea align with his ambitions for OpenAI in general and his AI-specific hardware in particular. His schedule appears to be quite packed, as he is scheduled to meet with executives from multiple divisions at Samsung, including the system LSI division, which designs chips. Samsung Semiconductor manufactures his DRAM and 3D NAND memory. and Samsung Foundry, which manufactures chips under contract.
Meetings with various divisions at Samsung could indicate that Altman is exploring ways to design, manufacture, and include memory for AI processors. From a strategic perspective, he aims to address his AI processor shortage issue and support the increasing performance demands of his OpenAI as it pursues artificial general intelligence (AGI) development.
Speaking of OpenAI’s AGI, there was a report in November about the company’s AI discovery called Q* (pronounced cue-star). Q* is said to be a technology that significantly advances AI inference and is considered a fundamental breakthrough in AGI development as it brings AI closer to humans. On the other hand, Q* was considered a threat to humanity. But at that point, Q* was good enough to solve mathematical tasks at the same level as an elementary school student. That said, OpenAI will likely require more (perhaps exponentially more) computing resources to develop the project to a commercially reasonable level and scale capacity to meet demand. That would be the answer. So we need a chip supply chain. Alternatively, OpenAI may require a different processor than those offered by Nvidia or other off-the-shelf hardware providers to achieve the above goals.
He is also reportedly scheduled to meet with the CEO of memory giant SK Hynix and the chairman of SK Group. This South Korean conglomerate owns his SK Hynix and operates various businesses such as chemicals, energy, and telecommunications. OpenAI’s Altman may work with SK Hynix to supply HBM memory for AI processors. On the other hand, his interest in SK Group may lie outside the chip venture and within the framework of OpenAI. Earlier this week, financial times Sam Altman met with UAE investors to discuss financial backing for the AI processor business, and TSMC has discussed chip production.