Chey Tae-won, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and chairman of SK Group, advised continuing to hold SK hynix shares, which have recently dropped sharply in price. He also said that amid the United States-China rivalry for supremacy in artificial intelligence (AI), Korea should target niches by exporting intelligence.
On the 17th at the Shilla Jeju hotel, in a talk on the theme "The future AI will bring and a growth discourse for the Korean economy," Chey was asked about the recent drop in SK hynix's stock price and said, "Stock prices do not reflect the situation as it is," adding, "When expectations for corporations rise, they go up, and when they seem a bit off, they can plunge."
He said, "I don't know what the stock price will be next month," but emphasized, "Don't keep buying and selling; just holding on quietly is a good way to preserve assets." He added, "AI is still like a 4-year-old child, but to become an adult it uses memory. Demand for memory has no choice but to increase exponentially."
He also said the United States and China will fiercely compete for supremacy in the AI industry. Chey explained, "The United States is focusing on spending a lot of money to build good AI, while China is approaching it by making tokens from AI data centers cheaply."
He went on to emphasize that, in this situation, Korea's survival strategy is to target niche markets. He said, "It is difficult for Korea to lower token prices, and surpassing the United States in quality will not help much," adding, "Our growth strategy is to build infrastructure, and on that infrastructure create niche markets that the United States and China are not interested in or that we can specialize in."
He added, "In the future, we need to move toward a strategy of exporting intelligence," and argued, "We need to make and sell something that is safer than, or has its own advantages over, what the United States and China offer."
Chey also presented a "four-muscle theory" as a competitiveness needed in the AI era. He said that to lead in the AI era, people need to develop four muscles: the ability to think and adapt to change, empathy with others, and value creation through physical activity.
He said, "Future education should not be rote learning but should find what helps human life," adding, "SK hynix no longer requires a university diploma in its hiring process. The era when graduating from college was required to be recognized as talent is over."
He also emphasized, "AI may pretend to understand, but it cannot empathize," adding, "A mind and actions that empathize will be important in the future."