Visit follows MOU signed between Ministry of Science and ICT and AMD in July
Rebellions, Furiosa AI, Upstage among 14 companies at roundtable
AMD AI research center to be established by year-end
Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD and one of the most prominent rivals to Nvidia in the global AI chip market, named South Korea a key cooperation partner Wednesday and said the company would work to create new collaboration opportunities with domestic AI semiconductor firms.
Su said AMD would help connect Korean companies' technologies and services to its global AI ecosystem to support their expansion into international markets. The two sides also agreed to work together on establishing an AMD AI research center by year-end and on cultivating talent for AI transformation.
Su made the remarks at a roundtable held Wednesday at the Four Seasons Hotel in Jongno-gu, Seoul, where she met with Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT Ryu Je-myung. "South Korea is an important cooperation partner for AMD," she said.
"As AMD has expanded its connections with diverse technologies and companies based on an open ecosystem, we will support Korean companies in linking up with the global AI ecosystem as well," Su added.
The roundtable was a follow-up to a memorandum of understanding signed between the Ministry of Science and ICT and AMD in July, when President Lee Jae Myung visited the San Francisco AI Summit. Su's visit to South Korea gave both sides an opportunity to review progress on their cooperation and explore new avenues with domestic companies.
Fourteen South Korean companies attended, including Rebellions, Furiosa AI, HyperAccel, DeepX, Mobilint, MangoBooost, Panmnesia, Dinotisia, More, Nota AI, Rable Up, Padu, Eligr Group and Upstage. The participants represented the full spectrum of AI infrastructure — AI semiconductors, software, memory and storage, networking, cloud and AI models.
Vice Minister Ryu noted that competition to build global AI infrastructure is intensifying and expanding to the system and platform level as the AI inference market grows.
In response, the two sides agreed to build a heterogeneous computing infrastructure combining AMD's central processing units and GPUs with domestically developed AI chips, with the aim of developing it into a reference model for entering global markets.
South Korean companies discussed three areas with Su: integration between AMD's CPUs and GPUs and domestic AI chips; participation in ROCm, AMD's open-source AI and high-performance computing software platform that serves as an alternative to Nvidia's CUDA; and strategies for Korean AI chipmakers to expand into global markets.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said it plans to review proposals and requests from domestic companies and take follow-up action under the MOU with AMD. The ministry aims to support Korean AI semiconductor and ecosystem companies in exploring overseas expansion through cooperation with AMD.
On top of that, the ministry and AMD discussed shifts in the AI computing market and ways to deepen bilateral cooperation — key issues in the global AI industry. They also agreed to pursue the establishment of an AMD AI research center by year-end and to develop graduate-level programs to cultivate AI and AI transformation talent.
"Through Lisa Su's visit, AMD and our companies were able to explore new possibilities for cooperation together," Ryu said. "I hope that by combining AMD's global capabilities with the technological strengths of our companies, new AI technologies and businesses will emerge — and that this will serve as a stepping stone for the domestic AI semiconductor ecosystem to reach the next level."
ko@heraldcorp.com
