South Korean President Meets Mark Zuckerberg, Discusses AI Cooperation And Digital Ecosystem

JAKARTA - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday 29 February, to discuss ways to increase cooperation with the US company in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and the digital ecosystem.

Yoon said that South Korean smart home equipment portfolios, wearable devices and smart cars offer good platforms for AI Meta technology.

Yoon also promised to support business cooperation and expressed his hopes for more collaboration in the metaverse and reality headset (XR).

"They discussed the vision to create an AI and digital ecosystem open and how to strengthen cooperation between Meta and our companies," Yoon's head of policy, Sung Tae-yoon, said in a briefing.

"The president said that the Korean industry is ready to actively support what Meta imagines and designs," he said.

Yoon also asked Meta to play an active role in monitoring and fighting fake news and other bad practices on its platform as many countries prepare for this year's election. Meta itself did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Wednesday, February 28, Zuckerberg met with Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee, and LG Electronics CEO William Cho to discuss potential cooperation in AI and XR technology.

Meta unveiled its newest mixed reality headset, Quest 3, in June before its rival, Apple, which increased competition this month by launching its Vision Pro device.

AI's chip supply and expanding ecosystems for generative AI are a top priority for Meta this year, as the company seeks to bring generative AI technology to its social media and hardware products.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea has announced measures to develop local AI, including investments to provide text data for large language models, core AI technology, and large capacity computing resources, as well as projects to embed AI.

South Korea will also host the Global AI Safety Summit in May.

Zuckerberg is making his first publicly known visit to South Korea in 10 years, as part of an Asian tour that includes visits to Japan and India.