SK Group's Chey Tae-won Meets OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Seoul

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for lunch in Seoul on October 31, during Altman's visit to South Korea, according to industry sources.

Executives from SK hynix and SK Telecom reportedly joined the meeting. The specific topics were not disclosed, but the discussion is thought to have centered on existing projects such as supplies of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and the build-out of AI data centers.

Building on last year's partnership

The two companies signed a strategic partnership in October last year to build global AI infrastructure. At SK Seorin Building in Seoul's Jongno district, they concluded a letter of intent (LOI) on memory supply and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on cooperating on an AI data center in the southwestern part of the capital region.

Under that arrangement, SK became a key partner in Stargate, OpenAI's massive AI infrastructure initiative. SK hynix said at the time that it would put in place a production system able to handle requests for HBM supply of up to 900,000 DRAM wafers per month. SK Telecom agreed to co-build the AI data center with OpenAI and to work on AI use cases for businesses and consumers, as well as next-generation data center technology.

Why it matters

The lunch shows that top-level contact between the two companies continues. Chey and Altman have stayed in touch since the deal, and they met again at the AI Summit in San Francisco in July, where they exchanged views on the long-term direction of cooperation in AI infrastructure.

For SK, demand for HBM tied to OpenAI's infrastructure plans is a central part of its AI strategy, while the data center project gives its telecom arm a role in domestic AI capacity. No new agreements were announced after the meeting.