South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Jan. 11 that Second Vice Minister Ryu Je-myung visited the headquarters of Nvidia and OpenAI in California on Jan. 9 local time. The visit was a step to advance cooperation that began after President Lee Jae-myung met Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in October last year.

Ryu met Jay Puri, executive vice president, at Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara to review the status of cooperation. They checked that the ministry's GPU procurement proceeds without disruption and discussed ways for public investment in AI infrastructure to serve as a catalyst to spur private investment. He said they formed a consensus on the need to promptly establish an Nvidia R&D centre in South Korea.

The two sides also discussed ways to link startup support programmes. They introduced the ministry-led K-Digital Grand Championship and Nvidia's Inception Startup Grand Challenge, and reviewed ways to link the two programmes to create synergy.

Ryu met Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer, at OpenAI's headquarters in San Francisco. The ministry and OpenAI have formed a working group to expand cooperation in follow-up steps to a memorandum of understanding signed on Oct. 1 last year. The ministry said the two sides exchanged views on AI safety and reliability issues and sought ways to expand cooperation with various institutions in related areas.

They also discussed AI education and training programmes to implement the state vision of "AI for All". They reviewed ways to foster AI talent and agreed to continue discussions through the working group on issues including OpenAI's push to build a domestic AI data centre.

Ryu attended a regular networking event hosted by United Korean Founder, a nonprofit group established by Korean-American venture investors and startups in the United States. UKF was founded in October 2024 by co-representatives Lee Gi-ha and Jung Se-ju and has about 1,500 members. Ryu presented on "South Korea's AI policy and vision" and discussed local AI investment trends and ways to support North American expansion by South Korean AI startups with UKF's co-representatives and major local Korean-American venture investment firms and startups.

Ryu said cooperation with OpenAI, Nvidia and overseas Korean venture investors and startups could be a good opportunity to elevate South Korea's AI capabilities by linking with the global AI ecosystem. He said the government would continue to build an open and sustainable global AI cooperation framework to support a leap to become one of the "top three AI powers".