SK Group Chairman, OpenAI CEO Meet for Lunch

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won had lunch at an undisclosed location in Seoul on the 31st with Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, who was visiting South Korea. Senior executives from SK hynix and SK Telecom also reportedly attended. The companies did not disclose what they discussed.

Industry observers said the two may have discussed existing cooperation, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM, memory designed for high data-transfer rates) supply and AI data center construction. SK Group and OpenAI formed a strategic partnership last October to build global AI infrastructure, agreeing to cooperate on memory chip supply and a domestic AI data center. At the time, they signed a memory supply letter of intent (LOI) and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a data center in South Korea’s southwestern region at SK Seorin Building in Jongno District, Seoul.

Under the agreement, SK would join Stargate, OpenAI’s large-scale AI infrastructure project, as a key partner. SK hynix said at the time that it planned to build production capacity to meet requests for up to 900,000 HBM wafers per month, measured by DRAM wafers. SK Telecom agreed to work with OpenAI on an AI data center in the southwestern region and to identify AI use cases for businesses and consumers and develop next-generation data center technology.

Chey and Altman have continued to meet. They also met at an AI summit in San Francisco in July this year to discuss long-term cooperation in AI infrastructure. It is not known whether they reached any specific agreement on existing projects over lunch. The article reported no new contract or decision, and gave no update on the previously agreed work or additional supply volumes. The scope of the lunch discussion was not disclosed; reports only said they may have exchanged views on existing cooperation. The meeting was reported as part of their ongoing engagement.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won had lunch at an undisclosed location in Seoul on the 31st with Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, who was visiting South Korea. Senior executives from SK hynix and SK Telecom also reportedly attended. The companies did not disclose what they discussed.

Industry observers said the two may have discussed existing cooperation, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM, memory designed for high data-transfer rates) supply and AI data center construction. SK Group and OpenAI formed a strategic partnership last October to build global AI infrastructure, agreeing to cooperate on memory chip supply and a domestic AI data center. At the time, they signed a memory supply letter of intent (LOI) and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a data center in South Korea’s southwestern region at SK Seorin Building in Jongno District, Seoul.

Under the agreement, SK would join Stargate, OpenAI’s large-scale AI infrastructure project, as a key partner. SK hynix said at the time that it planned to build production capacity to meet requests for up to 900,000 HBM wafers per month, measured by DRAM wafers. SK Telecom agreed to work with OpenAI on an AI data center in the southwestern region and to identify AI use cases for businesses and consumers and develop next-generation data center technology.

Chey and Altman have continued to meet. They also met at an AI summit in San Francisco in July this year to discuss long-term cooperation in AI infrastructure. It is not known whether they reached any specific agreement on existing projects over lunch. The article reported no new contract or decision, and gave no update on the previously agreed work or additional supply volumes. The scope of the lunch discussion was not disclosed; reports only said they may have exchanged views on existing cooperation. The meeting was reported as part of their ongoing engagement.