OpenAI Chooses Korea: Extensive Partnership with Samsung, Kakao

## OpenAI Officially Launches Korean Office…Presents Vision for 'Asia AI Hub' OpenAI held a press conference in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul on the 10th and announced the official launch of its Korean office. This decision, making it the third office in Asia and the 12th worldwide, reflects OpenAI's strong commitment to fostering South Korea as a next-generation global AI hub. Jason Kwon, OpenAI's Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), highly praised South Korea's cutting-edge infrastructure, innovative companies, and rapid technology adoption, identifying it as an optimal location for AI innovation. He emphasized that OpenAI would go beyond mere market entry to serve as a key partner in Korea's major AI transformation. Indeed, South Korea has seen a fourfold increase in weekly ChatGPT users in just one year, and its paid subscriber base is the largest in the Asia-Pacific region. Based on OpenAI API usage, it has emerged as a significant market, ranking among the top 10 globally. **'Agent Era' Declared and Latest Technologies Unveiled** CSO Kwon declared the 'Agent Era' as the next stage of AI development. If ChatGPT opened the era of conversational AI, the vision now is to advance to an era where AI solves problems autonomously. The latest technologies to support this vision were also revealed. The flagship model 'GPT-5' provides high-level reasoning capabilities by combining rapid responses with deep inference features, while 'Codex,' a coding agent that functions like a software engineering team member, demonstrated its potential with a tenfold surge in usage in just the past two weeks. 'Study Mode' to assist learning and 'GPT-OSS,' an open-weight model capable of user customization, were also announced. **Hint at Hardware Collaboration with Domestic Companies like Samsung and SK, and AI Data Center Investment** OpenAI Korea plans to concretize strategic partnerships with domestic companies. CSO Kwon stated that they are actively considering collaboration with Korean companies like Samsung Electronics and SK in the data center, hardware, and semiconductor sectors, and based on this growth, investment in AI data centers could also be reviewed. In the cloud sector, they plan to gradually expand partnerships with Korean companies. Already, leading domestic companies such as Kakao, SK Telecom, LG Electronics, and Toss have adopted OpenAI technology to drive productivity innovation. **Expanded Support for Academia, Government, and Startup Ecosystem** Collaboration with academia is also set to begin in earnest. OpenAI plans to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Seoul National University for research innovation, marking its first official partnership with a Korean university. Regarding the government's sovereign AI policy, OpenAI expressed that it views itself not as a threat but as a cooperative partner, aiming to realize the potential of leading Korea to become a full-stack AI powerhouse together. Furthermore, support for the domestic startup and developer ecosystem will be strengthened. OpenAI plans to connect startups with investors through 'Founders Day' and host the 'DevDay Exchange' developer conference. To support creators, they have collaborated with the Seoul Design Foundation to conduct 'Creative Lab Seoul' workshops and are carrying out various activities, such as projecting media art created with the video generation AI 'Sora' onto the exterior of the DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza). CSO Kwon emphasized that the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is OpenAI's ultimate goal, and partnerships that benefit everyone are crucial for this. However, at this press conference, there were many general answers such as "we will announce it in stages" regarding specific timelines or investment plans, including the timing of the Korean entity's establishment, appointment of a branch manager, and the scale of data center construction, leaving some feeling a bit disappointed.