Seoul: Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc., has engaged in discussions with South Korean government officials and leading technology companies, including Samsung Electronics Co. and AI startup Upstage, as part of AMD's efforts to enhance artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships in South Korea.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Su's two-day visit, which began on Wednesday, included meetings with key figures such as Im Moon-young, vice chair of the National AI Strategy Committee, and Ha Jung-woo, presidential secretary for AI policy and future planning. The discussions focused on potential cooperation in the AI sector, with South Korean officials outlining Seoul's policies to position the country as a leading AI powerhouse globally. The two sides explored opportunities for synergy between Korean companies and AMD, including joint research and development projects.
Further discussions were held to strengthen South Korea's global competitiveness in the AI industry. Both parties expressed a commitment to ongoing cooperation to create an open and global AI ecosystem.
Earlier, Su met with Roh Tae-moon, co-CEO of Samsung Electronics responsible for the mobile business, at Samsung's headquarters in Seoul. Although Su provided few details to reporters, industry experts speculate that the discussions centered on business cooperation within the AI ecosystem, particularly regarding PCs and tablet devices.
In addition to Samsung, Su also met with Sung Kim, head of the AI startup Upstage, to discuss broader cooperation aimed at driving AI innovation. AMD has been a strategic partner with Upstage since its participation in Upstage's Series B bridge investment last year. This partnership will see Upstage deploy AMD's Instinct MI355 accelerators to enhance its large language models and document processing engines.
The collaboration will also contribute to the development of a sovereign AI model as part of a South Korean government-led AI foundation model project, with Upstage moving to the second round alongside SK Telecom Co. and LG AI Research. The joint efforts are expected to strengthen South Korea's AI ecosystem and diversify its sovereign AI infrastructure.
Upstage emphasized that the collaboration with AMD's GPU technology would be instrumental in advancing its AI models and establishing Korea as a competitive force in global AI. Su highlighted Upstage's leading role in South Korea's AI innovation and expressed confidence in the partnership's potential to enhance Korea's AI capabilities.
On a related note, Su's visit included a meeting with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong as AMD seeks to expand its presence in the AI chip industry. This follows Samsung's announcement of an agreement to supply its latest high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for AMD's next-gen AI accelerators, designating Samsung as a preferred supplier under a memorandum of understanding (MOU).