AMD's Lisa Su to discuss AI hardware collaboration with Korea's Upstage in Seoul
A private breakfast meeting is set for the morning of the 19th at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul between Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD, and Kim Seong-hoon, founder of Upstage. The discussions are expected to move beyond existing investment ties toward practical collaboration on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
AMD is an investor in Upstage. In a 2023 funding round, Upstage raised a 62 billion won Series B bridge, with AMD listed as a core participant. The anticipated talks are viewed as an extension of that investor relationship, rather than a new deal.
Upstage has broadened its scope from AI model development to applied services, and GPU demand has risen accordingly as it nears the proposed acquisition of the Daum portal. The shape and scale of any collaboration could hinge on how well AMD’s GPUs perform for Upstage’s AI workloads and related services.
On the same trip, Lisa Su is expected to meet government AI officials, including Ha Jung-woo, Senior Secretary for AI Future Planning at the presidential office, and Im Moon-yeong, Vice-Chairman of the National AI Strategy Committee. The discussions aim to outline Korea’s AI strategy and explore cooperation on high-performance computing and AI data centers with domestic companies.
Industry observers say Su’s visit underscores AMD’s push to broaden its access to Korean AI and data-center markets at a time when Nvidia dominates the AI accelerator segment. AMD is often viewed as one of the few major rivals to Nvidia in advanced GPUs for AI workloads.
Su’s Korea schedule began with visits to Naver and Samsung on the first day, and she reportedly held a meeting with Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong. The travels signal a broader effort to align AMD with major Korean tech groups as AI infrastructure needs intensify globally.
For U.S. readers, the development matters because it highlights growing U.S.-Korea collaboration on AI hardware and cloud infrastructure, with potential implications for GPU supply chains, AI data-center markets, and competitive dynamics in the global AI ecosystem. A successful collaboration could diversify supply options for AI accelerators and influence downstream services and technology policy in the United States.
Upstage officials said the Seoul gathering is not expected to result in a contract or memorandum of understanding. Instead, they described it as a forum to discuss broader cooperation across AI infrastructure and related fields, with future steps to be determined.