Chey Tae-won, chair of SK Group, who is visiting the United States, said Korea should become an artificial intelligence (AI) native country so it can serve as the world's AI test bed.
On the 24th (local time) at the San Francisco AI Summit in San Francisco, United States, Chey cited building an AI native country as one of the conditions for the success of President Lee Jae-myung's recently released $3 trillion-scale Korea three mega projects (semiconductors, AI data centers, physical AI).
Chey said three conditions must be in place for the success of the three mega projects. He first said Korea must become an AI native country, adding, "The goal is to have at least one AI agent per person."
He went on, "If that happens, Korea will become the world's AI test bed where AI can be experimented." Chey said SK Group will provide more opportunities through relentless research and development (R&D).
Chey also emphasized the need to reduce AI expenses. He said, "Right now, AI costs are too expensive," adding, "We must use every method to lower expenses so many people around the world can benefit from AI." Chey said Korea can lower AI costs by producing more memory chips and building more AI data centers to become a hub of AI data centers connecting the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Chey also said the side effects of the AI era must be managed. Chey said, "We must build good AI governance, and create more jobs than AI eliminates." He added, "Today's AI is still in its early stage and can make far more boundless progress," and "When it enters a mature development phase, I hope Korea and the United States will join forces to build a much better AI infrastructure and AI ecosystem."
Chey also disclosed that, the day before, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang asked for more semiconductor production. Mentioning that he also ate chicken with Jensen Huang in the United States, Chey said, "Every time we meet, Jensen Huang says 'more chips.'"
Chey is known to have had dinner with Jensen Huang in Woodside, California. SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung and Madison Huang, Nvidia's senior director of product marketing for Omniverse and Robotics, also attended.
Chey said Broadcom and OpenAI also requested large volumes of memory semiconductors. He said demand for memory semiconductors from big tech corporations is surging explosively.