OpenAI’s Sam Altman to meet chipmakers Samsung, SK Hynix execs on January 26

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is visiting South Korea on Friday and meeting leaders of chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Altman is expected to discuss potential partnerships for making chips, the sources said, declining to be identified.

OpenAI, Samsung and SK did not have an immediate comment.


Altman is trying to raise billions of dollars for a chip venture for setting up a network of factories that will manufacture semiconductors, with chipmakers as potential partners, Bloomberg News reported last week.

Both SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics make high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in artificial intelligence chipsets, while Samsung Electronics also contract manufactures chips in competition with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

SK Hynix said on Thursday it seeks to become a "a total AI memory provider" after reporting a surprise December quarter profit on strong demand for memory chips used in AI.