Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won are likely to attend "Google Camp," the world's largest private gathering of tech titans, held later this month in Sicily, Italy. The business community is watching closely to see whether the two chairmen will continue their global networking in Europe, following their establishment of a massive artificial intelligence (AI) alliance in San Francisco.
According to the business community on the 27th, Lee and Chey are said to be planning to attend "Google Camp," a gathering of tech CEOs from around the world hosted by Google at the Rocco Forte Verdura Golf Resort in southern Sicily later this month.
Google Camp is an event held every summer by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It is characterized by strict secrecy surrounding everything from the attendee list to the detailed program. Among domestic conglomerate chiefs, Lee has consistently attended since the event's early days, building rapport with global figures, while Chey also made an appearance at the 2024 event.
Last year, with Korea-U.S. tariff negotiations reaching their final stages, both chairmen were reportedly unable to accept the invitation as they focused on their U.S. visit schedules. This year, however, expectations are mounting that both chairmen will once again board a flight to Sicily.
The business community expects that if the attendance is finalized, it will serve as a major opportunity to exchange ideas with Google and global tech CEOs, review the latest technology trends, and explore new collaboration opportunities. In particular, since Samsung Electronics (005930) and SK Group (034730) previously agreed at the San Francisco AI Summit on cooperation in memory semiconductors and AI data centers worth 950 billion dollars (about 1,400 trillion won) with Nvidia, Broadcom and others, Google Camp is analyzed as a potential stage to further expand related business plans. With memory semiconductor demand surging worldwide, requests from major big tech firms to expand chip supply are also expected to be concentrated there.
Their moves are also seen as evidence of the heightened status and leadership of Korean companies within the global AI industry. Indeed, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang lavished praise at the San Francisco summit, saying, "Without the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) innovations of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix (000660), Nvidia would not have been able to build supercomputers, and there would be no AI power like today." He added, "Now is truly Korea's golden age."
