President Lee Jae-myung secured artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor cooperation worth a total of $950 billion (about 1,375 trillion won) between Korean companies and global Big Tech firms during his visit to San Francisco. Six of Silicon Valley's leading venture capital (VC) firms entered strategic cooperation with the National Pension Service, strengthening the foundation for Korean AI startups to attract overseas investment.
President Lee held the "San Francisco AI Summit" on the 24th, attended by Korean and U.S. semiconductor and AI companies. Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Euisun Chung, and Naver board chairman Lee Hae-jin attended, along with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan. They discussed cooperation measures and signed business agreements on this scale.
First, SK Group will pursue advanced memory semiconductor supply cooperation worth a total of $750 billion over the next five years, including $500 billion in cooperation with Nvidia. Samsung Electronics and Broadcom will engage in $200 billion worth of AI chip foundry cooperation.
Naver will pursue a $10 billion AI factory with Nvidia and Brookfield, and Hyundai Motor agreed to jointly build a robotics reference platform with Nvidia. Kim Yong-beom, director of the Presidential Office of Policy Planning, explained the significance: "In each core area of the three mega-projects—from semiconductors to AI data centers and physical AI—we have prepared concrete investment and cooperation measures with global partners." In addition, President Lee presented a vision through the "San Francisco AI Declaration" at the summit, saying Korea would "leap forward as an irreplaceable core nation in the global AI supply chain."
Chairman Chey expressed confidence in expanding AI semiconductor demand, saying, "Jensen said he 'stays hungry.'" CEO Huang also praised Korea as a core AI hub, saying, "Nvidia's AI researchers plan to relocate from California to Korea." An AI data center on the scale of 5GW (approximately 2 million GPUs) is also gaining speed. In particular, CEO Huang met with President Lee and stressed, "Under President Lee's leadership, Korea has achieved so much over the past year," adding, "It is no exaggeration to say this is truly Korea's golden age."
The following day, on the 25th, President Lee attended a Silicon Valley venture investment meetup and emphasized a "Korea-U.S. AI alliance," saying, "Korea and the United States must broaden the horizons of cooperation beyond a security alliance into a technology, innovation, and startup alliance." The National Pension Service signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) with six firms including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to expand investment in Korean startups and discover global innovative companies. President Lee said, "Korea will become a hub of innovation that produces the next generation of world-class innovative companies like Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, and Naver."
