Science ministry brings 13 Korean AI chip firms face to face with AMD's Lisa Su

The science ministry said Wednesday it arranged a meeting between AMD Chair and Chief Executive Lisa Su and 13 South Korean AI semiconductor and infrastructure companies in Seoul, as it moves to turn a July memorandum with the US chipmaker into market access for domestic firms.

Second Vice Minister Ryu Je-myung met Su at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul and then joined the roundtable. The gathering followed up on the memorandum signed in July as part of the outcomes of President Lee Jae-myung's AI summit in San Francisco.

Ryu and Su agreed to push ahead with the establishment of an AMD AI centre of excellence in Korea within the year, along with graduate-level training in AI, the ministry said. The two sides agreed to build heterogeneous computing infrastructure that combines AMD's central processing units and graphics processing units with Korean AI chips, and to develop it into a reference model for global markets.

The 13 companies at the roundtable span AI infrastructure, from neural processing units and software to memory, storage, networking, cloud and AI models. They are FuriosaAI, HyperExcel, DEEPX, Mobilint, MangoBoost, Panasia, Dinoticia, Moreh, Nota AI, Lablup, Fadu, Ellis Group and Upstage.

Executives discussed with Su how to link AMD's CPUs and GPUs with Korean AI chips, how to join open software ecosystems such as ROCm, and how domestic AI chip companies can enter global markets.

Su emphasised that Korea is an important partner for AMD and said the company would work with strong Korean firms to create new cooperation opportunities. She said AMD would actively work with Korean companies with strong technology and help connect them to the global AI ecosystem.

The ministry said it will review the cooperation proposals raised at the roundtable and develop them into concrete projects linked to the follow-up measures of its memorandum with AMD.

"Cooperation with AMD that began with the July memorandum has moved a step further through Chairman Su's visit, into direct meetings with our companies," Ryu said. "At this meeting, AMD and our companies were able to share their technologies and capabilities and explore new possibilities for cooperation together."

He added that the government's most important role is to create a place where good companies and technologies can meet, and to support those meetings so they lead to actual cooperation. "Starting with today's meeting, I hope AMD's global capabilities and our companies' technology will combine to create new AI technologies and businesses, and that this becomes an opportunity for our AI semiconductor ecosystem to grow another step," he said.