South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has laid out an ambitious vision to position his country as one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence powers, bringing together some of the biggest names in technology during a high-profile AI summit in San Francisco. The gathering marked a significant step in South Korea’s drive to strengthen its influence in the rapidly expanding AI industry while deepening cooperation with major U.S. technology companies.
President Lee met privately with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan before addressing the summit. The event also attracted South Korea’s top business leaders, including executives from Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group and Naver, highlighting the country’s determination to unite government and industry behind its AI ambitions.
During his keynote speech, Lee introduced the “San Francisco AI Declaration,” a roadmap that outlines South Korea’s commitment to expanding international collaboration in artificial intelligence. He said the country aims to become a critical part of the global AI supply chain by combining its advanced semiconductor expertise with partnerships involving leading AI developers around the world.
The summit was accompanied by a series of massive business agreements worth an estimated $950 billion. SK Group announced deals valued at about $750 billion, including a partnership between SK Hynix and Nvidia worth more than $500 billion. The collaboration focuses on securing next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips, expanding AI infrastructure and supporting the development of increasingly powerful AI systems. Samsung Electronics also signed a memorandum of understanding with Broadcom worth up to $200 billion, covering AI accelerators, advanced memory chips, semiconductor manufacturing and packaging technologies.
One of the most significant projects announced is the construction of a 2-gigawatt AI data centre by SK Telecom. Scheduled to begin operations in 2027, the facility will use Nvidia’s Vera Rubin computing platform alongside SK Hynix’s latest HBM4 memory technology. The project is expected to provide enormous computing capacity for training advanced AI models and supporting next-generation AI applications across multiple industries.
The new agreements come at a time when demand for AI chips continues to outpace global supply. As companies race to build more powerful AI models, advanced memory chips have become one of the industry’s most valuable components. South Korea, home to global semiconductor leaders such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, is seeking to use its manufacturing strength to become an indispensable partner for AI companies worldwide.
Industry leaders at the summit noted that demand for AI hardware continues to rise faster than earlier forecasts. Executives indicated that future AI systems will require far greater quantities of high-performance memory and computing infrastructure than previously expected, making long-term supply agreements increasingly important for technology companies developing advanced AI platforms.
Around 150 executives, investors, researchers and startup founders attended the summit, reflecting growing international interest in South Korea’s AI strategy. President Lee is also expected to meet representatives from U.S. venture capital firms and South Korea’s National Pension Service to encourage greater investment in South Korean AI startups and technology companies.
The latest announcements build on South Korea’s broader industrial strategy unveiled earlier this year, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars in planned investments aimed at expanding semiconductor production, building AI data centres and developing a nationwide AI ecosystem. By combining government support with partnerships involving global technology leaders, South Korea hopes to secure a leading role in the next generation of artificial intelligence innovation and infrastructure.
