AMD CEO's First Korea Visit, Strategic Agreement on 'AI Top 3' with Blue House

On the 19th, Ha Jeong-woo, Senior Secretary to the President for AI and Future Planning, and Lim Moon-young, Vice Chairman of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee, met with AMD CEO Lisa Su to agree on comprehensive cooperation in the AI sector. CEO Lisa Su visited Korea for the first time in 12 years since taking office in 2014, holding a series of meetings with government officials and major companies.

During the meeting held at the National Science and Technology Advisory Council, both sides discussed multifaceted cooperation measures including AI software talent development linked to the 'K-Moonshot' strategy, joint technology development and research (R&D), and regional industrial AI transformation (AX) through data center construction. Senior Secretary Ha and Vice Chairman Lim introduced the strategy to become an 'AI Top 3' nation through nationwide AI highway construction, while CEO Lisa Su expressed satisfaction that cooperation with domestic AI companies has been strengthened through this visit.

Strategic Visit Coinciding with NVIDIA's GTC Event

This visit coincided precisely with NVIDIA's annual developer conference 'GTC 2026' being held in the United States. While NVIDIA currently holds approximately 90% market share in the AI GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) market, AMD is preparing to launch its next-generation GPU 'MI450' to catch up.

CEO Lisa Su visited Samsung Electronics' Pyeongtaek campus on the 18th, meeting with key semiconductor executives including Jeon Young-hyun, head of the Device Solutions (DS) division, and reportedly held cooperation discussions with Naver as well. AMD is presenting an alternative to NVIDIA's closed CUDA platform by advocating for an open AI ecosystem.

Regional Balanced Development and Data Center Construction Cooperation

Both sides particularly agreed on the importance of regional industrial AX for balanced regional development, including data center construction. The 'K-Moonshot Strategy' is a nationwide project that combines AI and science technology to solve national core missions and accelerate science and technology innovation, aiming to double research productivity by 2030 and solve national missions in eight major fields—advanced bio, future energy, physical AI, space, materials, AI scientists, semiconductors, and quantum—by 2035.

An official from the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee stated, "Based on this successful cooperation model, we will expand public-private cooperation so that more Korean companies can create synergies through AMD's open AI ecosystem in the future."

AMD's Open Ecosystem Strategy

Future Outlook [AI Analysis]

This cooperation between AMD and the Korean government is likely to create cracks in NVIDIA's dominant position in the AI infrastructure market. In particular, AMD's open ecosystem strategy could work favorably for Korean companies to secure their own AI technology capabilities without being dependent on a specific platform.

The linkage with the K-Moonshot strategy is expected to expand beyond simple hardware cooperation to software talent development and joint R&D. To achieve the goal of doubling research productivity by 2030, AMD's high-performance computing technology and Korea's AI research capabilities are likely to be combined.

However, considering NVIDIA's already established CUDA ecosystem and overwhelming market share, AMD's market expansion is expected to proceed gradually. How much concrete results AMD can achieve in the medium- to long-term tasks of data center construction and regional industrial AI transformation will be the key factor determining the success of this cooperation.