SK Chairman Chey Tae-won Visits CES in the U.S. to Discuss Business with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang

 SK Chairman Choi Tae-won visited CES in Las Vegas, USA on the 8th (local time), toured the exhibition hall, and held a press conference with domestic media. At this meeting, Chairman Choi mentioned the business discussions that took place during his meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and revealed SK’s AI business vision.

SK Chairman Choi Tae-won, who attended ‘CES 2025’ held in Las Vegas, USA on the 8th (local time), is holding a Q&A session in the business lounge set up in the SK exhibition booth.

In response to reporters’ questions about his meeting with CEO Hwang, Chairman Choi stated, “We met and discussed various business-related matters,” and answered, “(Previously) the other party’s request was to ‘develop faster,’ but recently, SK Hynix has preemptively increased its development speed, so we are working head-to-head to create faster.” Chairman Choi also explained, “(NVIDIA) understood computing well and was the company that most efficiently found and created computing-related solutions, and that was what CEO Hwang thought, and it was actually moving that way.”

When asked about his thoughts on visiting CES for the third consecutive year, Chairman Choi Tae-won said, “Everything is becoming AI-ized, and it is an exhibition where you can see that AI is starting to be incorporated into everything,” and “It was a place to confirm that AI, commonly known as physical AI, is becoming commonplace and common sense for robots and our peripheral devices to be equipped with AI.”

Chairman Choi Tae-won also introduced SK’s vision for promoting data center business in relation to its AI business. Chairman Choi stated, “(Right now) we are doing AI semiconductors, but what we are doing new is finding a model that can become an AI data center solution, and we are focusing on AI data-related business as a key task.”

Chairman Choi Tae-won repeatedly emphasized that South Korea should not fall behind in the AI ​​industry competition, saying, “AI is something we must do whether we like it or not, and if we fall behind in this competition, the competitiveness of all the industries we have been proud of, such as semiconductors, shipbuilding, and steel, will be threatened.” He also said, “AI is not an option, but an industry that is creating all-round changes across all fields, like the Internet environment or the steam engine.” He added, “Whether we lead this change or follow it will determine our economic ups and downs.”

Chairman Choi Tae-won also added suggestions for the development of South Korea’s AI industry. Chairman Choi said, “We need to develop APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) ourselves in some form,” and “We also need support for strategic planning for specific regions, such as AI related to manufacturing or AI related to robots.” If we pursue overall growth without specializing in the AI ​​industry, it will be difficult for a single company or organization to win the global competition with its size and capabilities.

Finally, Chairman Choi emphasized AI infrastructure and people, saying, “Through education, we need to create a basic environment where people can constantly use AI and where people who create and research AI can experiment with AI and produce results.” He said, “If we become completely dependent on other countries and other places, it will be quite difficult for us to pioneer our own future.” He added, “We need to create what we need ourselves, and we will continue to be in a situation where we cannot depend on others forever.”