Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive of Microsoft Corp., is trying to build an artificial intelligence alliance with major South Korean companies when she visits Seoul next month, industry sources said Tuesday.
His trip to Seoul in late March poses a threat to major generation AI models such as Openai’s ChatGPT, as Chinese AI app Deepseek will cause global chaos.
Nadella’s visit to Asian countries is timed at a Microsoft AI Tour held in Seoul on March 26th, a gathering of high-tech developers and IT professionals. This is his first trip to Seoul since November 2022.
During his stay in Seoul, Microsoft chief held a town hall meeting with leaders of major Korean companies, where he is expected to propose an AI partnership with them, and was well-versed in the issue. People said.
Sources said Nadella had offered to meet with Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Euisun. Chang In-HWA, chairman of Posco Holdings Inc., and parent of Korean top steel maker Posco. Jin Ok Dong, chairman of Shinhan Financial Group. Kim Young-Shub, CEO of Kt Corp.
They said there could be scheduling conflicts as Shinhan Financial Group holds its annual shareholders meeting on March 26th.
The growing need for AI Alliance
During his meeting with Korean business leaders, Nadella is expected to unveil his vision for AI development in collaboration with leading Korean companies in the manufacturing, banking and communications sectors.
Sources said they are preparing to give a keynote address on how AI can overcome traditional industry technological limitations.
In January, China’s Deepseek rattles the global market by claiming that the AI model is trained with a fraction of the cost of major AI players and less sensible Nvidia chips.
The Deepseek announcement has sparked an aggressive AI-related stock sale and considerable debate about whether large tech companies are too many in AI infrastructure.
Microsoft’s chief is expected to address tricky issues surrounding Deepseek and the US AI model during his stay at Seoul, sources said.
Partnership with Korean companies
Last May, Nadella was exploring AI chip business opportunities at the MS CEO Summit 2024 in Redmond, Washington, and SAMSUNG Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc., LG Electronics Inc. and SK Telecom Co. I met with senior executives. Appliances, advanced communications and cloud services.
Four months later, Microsoft and KT falsified a five-year multi-billion-dollar strategic partnership for AI transformation at telecommunications companies.
The deal follows the agreement signed in June, and has partnered with AI, cloud and information technology to drive innovation in South Korea’s AI and cloud.
According to global market research firm IDC, the Korean AI market is projected to grow from 3 trillion won in 2024 to 4.5 trillion won ($3.1 billion) by 2027.
Jae-Won Park, Ji-Eun Jeong, Woo-Sub Kim write to Wonderful@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.
