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South Korea President Lee Hosts US Tech Summit, Calls for New AI Era
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South Korea President Lee Hosts US Tech Summit, Calls for New AI Era

From Asharq Al-Awsat · () English

Summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources New plan
  • South Korean President Lee Jae Myung hosted an AI summit in San Francisco, aiming to position the country as a global AI leader.
  • The summit brought together top AI developers and South Korean business executives to foster technological cooperation.
  • Key outcomes included the "San Francisco AI Declaration" and a significant investment initiative between Nvidia and SK Group for AI data centers.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung convened a major AI summit in San Francisco, bringing together global technology leaders and top South Korean business figures. The event aimed to accelerate Seoul's ambition to become a global powerhouse in artificial intelligence.

President Lee articulated a vision for South Korea to lead a new era of AI through partnerships with international tech companies. He emphasized making the country's "dynamic AI ecosystem" available to expand the global market for both industrial and personal AI applications. Before the summit, Lee met individually with the CEOs of leading AI firms: Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, and Hock Tan of Broadcom. Prominent South Korean business leaders, including Jay Y. Lee of Samsung Electronics, Chey Tae-won of SK Group, Euisun Chung of Hyundai Motor Group, and Lee Hae-jin of Naver, also attended.

I'd like to present a vision for the future of AI and propose global cooperation to make it happen.

— President LeeOutlining the goals of the San Francisco AI Declaration.

A central outcome of the summit was the unveiling of the "San Francisco AI Declaration," which outlines South Korea's strategic AI ambitions and calls for technological cooperation with the United States. "I'd like to present a vision for the future of AI and propose global cooperation to make it happen," President Lee stated.

The push to integrate South Korea into the global AI supply chain comes amid a surge in demand for chips and computing infrastructure, which is outpacing supply. This dynamic is driving tech companies toward closer collaborations with South Korea's semiconductor and memory manufacturers. On the sidelines of the conference, Nvidia and SK Group announced a substantial initiative exceeding $500 billion, focused on developing large-scale AI data centers and next-generation memory technologies. SK Telecom plans to construct a 2-gigawatt data center, slated for operation in 2027, powered by Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips and SK Hynix's HBM4 high-bandwidth memory chips.

AI customers were seeking far more memory than previously anticipated.

— CheyHighlighting the growing demand for AI memory.
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Originally published by Asharq Al-Awsat. Summarized and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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