OpenAI Officially Establishes Seoul Office... Sam Altman: "Korea is a Key Market"

OpenAI, the world's leading artificial intelligence company, officially established its Seoul office in 2025, signaling full-scale entry into the Korean market. During his visit to Korea, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized that "Korea's semiconductor, energy, and internet companies are critically important markets for OpenAI," expressing strong commitment to deepening strategic partnerships with Korea.

ChatGPT Second Largest Paid Subscriber Market: Korea

Korea represents a strategically vital market for OpenAI. The country ranks second globally in ChatGPT paid subscribers after the United States, accounting for 4.3% of ChatGPT app in-app purchase revenue and holding the number two position in the Asian market.

Korean users' ChatGPT utilization rates are among the highest globally. ChatGPT is actively used across diverse fields including business productivity improvement, learning tools, programming assistance, and content creation. As Korean language performance continues to improve, user satisfaction has also increased significantly.

Recognizing the importance of the Korean market, OpenAI plans to provide better services to Korean customers through its Seoul office and expand collaboration with Korean companies. The Seoul office is scheduled for official opening within 2025, having already completed domestic business registration.

Kakao·SK Telecom·Samsung Electronics: Building Strategic Partnerships

OpenAI is establishing strategic partnerships with major Korean companies, advancing AI ecosystem expansion. Key partnerships include Kakao, SK Telecom, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix.

**Kakao**: Entered strategic alliance to integrate ChatGPT into KakaoTalk. With ChatGPT integration into Korea's national messenger KakaoTalk, 50 million users can naturally utilize AI assistants in everyday conversations. Kakao is also leveraging OpenAI's API to integrate AI functionality across its services, expanding collaboration in search, recommendations, and content generation.

**SK Telecom**: Collaborating on AI data center infrastructure development. SK Telecom is using its telecommunications infrastructure and data center capabilities to support OpenAI's AI service provision in Korea. Integration of SK Telecom's AI assistant 'A.' with ChatGPT is also under discussion, potentially marking telecommunication carriers' evolution into AI platform providers.

**Samsung Electronics**: Core partnership in AI semiconductors. Samsung Electronics supplies high-performance memory semiconductors (HBM) and GPUs required to run OpenAI's AI models, with joint development of AI-dedicated semiconductors also under discussion. Samsung Electronics is also exploring ChatGPT integration into Galaxy smartphones and home appliances.

**SK Hynix**: Key partner supplying HBM3E (5th generation high bandwidth memory) to OpenAI. SK Hynix exclusively supplies high-performance memory semiconductors essential for training and servicing OpenAI's GPT models, symbolizing the strategic partnership between both companies.

Expanding Collaboration with Korean AI Startups

OpenAI is also expanding collaboration with promising Korean AI startups. Notably, English conversation service **Speak** has formed a technology partnership with OpenAI, leveraging ChatGPT's voice recognition and conversation technology to enhance service quality.

Speak combines OpenAI's Whisper (voice recognition) and GPT-4 (conversation generation) technologies to provide users with English learning experiences resembling real native speaker conversations. Such collaboration offers Korean AI startups opportunities to develop innovative services utilizing global AI technology.

Through its Seoul office, OpenAI plans to collaborate more closely with Korea's AI startup ecosystem, providing Korean developers with cutting-edge AI technology and APIs. Additionally, educational programs and research support for Korean AI talent development will be expanded.

GPT-5 Era: Korea's Role

OpenAI recently announced GPT-5, its next-generation AI model, heralding a new era of AI technology. GPT-5 possesses significantly stronger reasoning capabilities and multimodal processing abilities than GPT-4, reportedly capable of performing expert-level tasks.

Korea is expected to play a crucial role in the GPT-5 era. First, Korean semiconductor companies supply high-performance semiconductors essential for running GPT-5. Second, Korean telecommunications companies and platform enterprises serve as channels for rapidly disseminating GPT-5 in the Korean market. Third, Korean AI talent develops GPT-5-based innovative services for global market entry.

CEO Sam Altman emphasized during his Korea visit that "Korea is OpenAI's most important partner in terms of technological capability, market size, and user activity," stating "we will further expand collaboration with Korea in the GPT-5 era."

AI Hegemony Competition: Korea's Strategic Choice

OpenAI's entry into Korea demonstrates Korea's strategic position in the global AI hegemony competition. As US companies OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft compete intensely with China's Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent for AI technology dominance, Korea wields influence as both a core semiconductor supplier and major market.

The Korean government, through its AI National Strategy, aims to achieve AI powerhouse status by 2030, expanding semiconductor, telecommunications, and platform sector technological competitiveness into the AI ecosystem. Collaboration with OpenAI represents an important axis of this strategy.

However, there are concerns that Korea should not merely import and use AI technology but must also secure independent AI technological competitiveness. Development of Korean companies' proprietary AI models including Naver's HyperCLOVA X, Kakao's KoGPT, and Samsung Electronics' Gauss should proceed in parallel.

OpenAI's Seoul office establishment presents both opportunity and challenge for Korea's AI industry. While leveraging collaboration with OpenAI to utilize cutting-edge AI technology, building Korea's unique AI ecosystem remains a challenge for Korea's AI industry.

The journey OpenAI begins anew in Seoul in 2025 will be closely watched to see if it can accelerate Korea's AI industry advancement, with industry expectations gathering.

---

Read the original Korean article: OpenAI, 서울 지사 공식 설립…샘 알트먼 "한국은 핵심 시장"