In a bid to revive company, Samsung boss to meet OpenAI CEO

Lee, who has been in legal shackles for almost a decade, was cleared of accounting fraud and stock manipulation charges earlier today. Now that the Seoul High Court has cleared him of corporate fraud-related charges, he will likely be able to operate Samsung more freely. Lee is reportedly expected to accelerate his moves to create a “New Samsung.”

Samsung's Lee to meet OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for an open partnership

According to a report from MK Business, one of the first business moves that Lee plans to make is to create an open partnership with OpenAI, the creator of the groundbreaking AI-powered chat assistant ChatGPT. Lee will meet OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for this partnership during the latter's business trip to South Korea tomorrow.

Apparently, Lee wants OpenAI and Samsung to work together to use each other's technologies. For example, Samsung could use OpenAI's AI algorithms to power features in its home appliances, smartphones, tablets, and TVs. And OpenAI could use Samsung's semiconductor chips to power its servers.

Since Nvidia's AI chips are in huge demand, OpenAI can't get enough of those chips to get the computing power it needs. So, Sam Altman has reportedly been planning to raise hundreds of billions of dollars so that OpenAI can develop its own semiconductor chips to create massive data centers. Samsung Foundry could help it fabricate those chips.

In fact, according to a report from The New York Times, Sam Altman approached Samsung and TSMC and persuaded them to create chip fabrication plants. Samsung chief could discuss a bilateral partnership with OpenAI's CEO. Samsung could even invest in OpenAI.

Watch AI-powered technologies used in Samsung's new smartphones in our video below.

Lee could make important business moves with major mergers and acquisitions to fuel future growth

Another way Lee is trying to revive Samsung is by making huge mergers and acquisitions. Between 2014 and 2016, Samsung made three major acquisitions:

1. Harman (November 2016): Harman owns several famous audio brands, including AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity Audio, and JBL. It is also a major player in the connected car ecosystem and designs digital cockpit technologies used in modern cars.
2. LoopPay (February 2015): It created MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) which formed the basis for Samsung Pay. All modern Galaxy phones and smartwatches now feature Samsung Pay for making mobile payments.
3. SmartThings (August 2014): It formed the basis for Samsung's SmartThings smart home platform. It is now included in all Samsung smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, TVs, and home appliances.

However, after Lee got embroiled in legal issues related to the merger of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T, both of which were Samsung Group's affiliate companies, he was barred from making any major mergers and acquisitions. Now that he is free from those shackles, he is expected to make major acquisitions that can help grow Samsung in the future.

If Lee manages to stabilize Samsung's ship, we could see the old Samsung again, which isn't afraid to take risks and bring groundbreaking products.