President Lee to meet SoftBank chief for AI talks

SoftBank Group Chairman Masayoshi Son (EPA/Yonhap)

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung will meet with SoftBank Group Chairman Masayoshi Son on Friday to discuss cooperation on artificial intelligence, including Korea’s participation in the Stargate Project, the presidential office said on Thursday.

Lee will host Son in Seoul, joined by his chief of staff and senior economic ministers. The meeting is expected to address Korea’s role in Stargate — a global AI-infrastructure buildout led by SoftBank Group, OpenAI, and Oracle Corp.

The talks follow Lee’s meeting in October with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, during which the company committed to building an AI data center in Korea.

Lee has made the push to become what he calls “top-three AI nation” a central policy priority, courting global tech leaders and securing pledges of cooperation from Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and investment commitments from BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink.

Son’s visit comes 10 months after his last trip to Seoul, when he and Altman met Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Jay Y. Lee to discuss wide-ranging collaboration on smartphone-AI integration and large-scale data center infrastructure.

SoftBank has been ramping up its global AI bets, including Stargate, a project expected to require up to $500 billion in investment. The group is also preparing to inject an additional $22.5 billion into OpenAI next month, according to industry officials.