OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has paid a working visit to South Korea, where he held a meeting with approximately 50 executives from companies within the Samsung Group. This was announced by Samsung itself, specifying that the talks took place in Yongin, a city located south of Seoul. The discussions involved top managers responsible for electronics manufacturing, financial operations, and biotechnology divisions within the corporate group. The central issue was the prospect of transforming various industries using artificial intelligence, as well as business opportunities for the next decade.
Stargate, Floating Data Centers, and Memory Chips
The meeting was not the first high-level contact, but a logical continuation of the ongoing partnership between the two companies. Under the terms of the agreement, Samsung supplies memory chips for the large-scale Stargate infrastructure project, which OpenAI is implementing in partnership with other tech giants. In addition, the companies are jointly developing the concept of AI data centers, including non-standard projects for floating marine platforms designed to remove land and energy constraints when deploying computing clusters. Samsung, in turn, is actively introducing AI technologies into all areas of its operations—from research and production lines to marketing and corporate governance.
Memory Shortage Hits the Entire AI Industry
The key context of Altman's visit is the mounting shortage of semiconductor memory, which has become a serious obstacle to AI companies' plans to expand computing infrastructure. The surge in demand for computing power has led to a sharp increase in the price not only of memory, but also of other semiconductor components for data centers: processors, accelerators, and consumer electronics elements. According to data provided in the article, memory accounts for about a third of all data center creation costs. High demand from data center operators increases competition for access to components: the top five players in AI infrastructure plan to invest more than three trillion dollars in the coming years.
Altman is Not the First: A Wave of Silicon Valley Visits
Altman's visit to South Korea is not an isolated case. The country remains a global leader in the production of advanced memory chips, which is why it has become a magnet for the top management of the American tech sector. Since last year, Seoul has been visited twice by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su, also with the aim of strengthening supply chain ties. A steady pattern is emerging: the more aggressively AI giants build up infrastructure, the more often their leaders personally travel to chip manufacturers to guarantee priority access to scarce components.
What This Means for the Market
The combination of factors—trillion-dollar investments by the top five players, rising prices for memory and processors, and the transition to non-standard forms of data center deployment (including floating platforms)—indicates that competition for computing resources in 2026–2030 will be determined not only by algorithms, but also by the physical availability of semiconductors. Altman's visit to Samsung confirms that even the company sitting at the top of the AI market is forced to personally negotiate the supply of basic components. For Samsung, in turn, this is a strengthening of its position in the value chain: from a chip supplier to a strategic partner involved in designing entire infrastructure projects.
