Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who’s touring Asia international locations this week, mentioned in a gathering with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday that Meta desires to beef up its cooperation with Samsung Electronics for AI chips to offset geopolitical threat challenge in Taiwan, the place TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip producer, is headquartered.
Zuckerberg and Yoon additionally mentioned methods to broaden cooperation in synthetic intelligence and prolonged actuality industries, a South Korean presidential official mentioned in a briefing right now (in Korean).
AI processors — the manufacturing and procurement, and the event of cutting-edge applied sciences which can be extra environment friendly than the present era of chips — have turn out to be a significant precedence for any firm working within the subject of AI, and so too they’ve turn out to be a spotlight for Meta for the way forward for its social media and {hardware} gadgets companies.
Zuckerberg reportedly met Samsung’s executives, together with Samsung government chairman Jay Y. Lee, Wednesday night time to debate potential collaborations round AI chips, semiconductors, and prolonged actuality. A Samsung spokesperson declined to touch upon Zuckerberg’s assembly with Samsung when contacted by TechCrunch for a response to the report, but in addition didn’t dispute it.
TSMC opened its first chip fabrication plant in Japan to diversify its provide chains away from Taiwan because the U.S.-China tech conflict intensifies. TSMC-owned Japan Superior Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM), which was established by the Japanese authorities and the companies in 2020, began the plant’s development course of in April 2022. JASM is ready to arrange its second chip plant in Japan, with development start in 2027-end.
Meta’s founder additionally met Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday to debate AI and semiconductors. Japan has been looking for to revitalize its chip making trade, which is about 10 years behind Taiwan and South Korea on the subject of next-generation chips.
Zuckerberg’s tour coincides with what has turn out to be a significant international AI chip race. Nvidia continues to dominate the worldwide marketplace for AI chips, leaving an enormous alternative for international locations which have historically been sturdy in processors or reignite their innovation instincts. That’s one thing that tech corporations constructing AI companies are eager to assist to ease their Nvidia dependence. To that finish, the social media big has been ramping up its efforts to safe AI chips, and has been working by itself in-house AI chip, Artemis, for its knowledge facilities. Large tech corporations like Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, and Google have equally been scrambling for AI chips to assist their AI ambitions.
Meta’s ambition on XR: Assembly with LG
The conferences right now are the most recent in a string of visits that the Meta CEO has been making within the area. Simply yesterday, Zuckerberg met LG Electronics CEO William Cho in Seoul throughout his tour of Asia. LG Electronics mentioned it had a two-hour-long assembly with Zuckerberg to debate the 2 corporations’ potential strategic collaboration on prolonged actuality (XR) system growth.
When TechCrunch requested if the dialogue included concrete plans between the 2 events, a spokesperson of LG Electronics mentioned that LG Electronics and Meta “have been working intently even earlier than the highest administration assembly yesterday,” and that the 2 corporations have been anticipating extra alternatives going ahead. No particulars on monetary phrases or what merchandise particularly a collaboration would contain.
The LG spokesperson additionally mentioned, citing the corporate CEO Cho, who advised native reporters after the assembly, “The highest administration of the 2 corporations mentioned the strategic instructions and timelines of the collaboration.”
On the a part of LG, the Korean tech big desires to deliver Meta’s prolonged actuality (XR) platform to LG’s content material and shopper gadgets — for instance, its TVs — to forge a “distinctive ecosystem” within the Korean firm’s newly arrange XR enterprise, LG mentioned in an announcement.
LG, like each different tech firm on the planet right now, is blowing the AI horn in the intervening time. However realistically, it has not made many waves to this point within the AI race — neither as a chipmaker, nor as a developer of AI-centric merchandise, nor in providers. Meta presents an opportunity for LG to accomplice with an organization that has made extra headway, but which doesn’t current a direct competitor to LG by way of its bigger shopper electronics enterprise, and furthermore offsets the dominance of another huge gamers within the AI area like Google and OpenAI.
Living proof: the corporate particularly has identified that Cho “expressed a eager curiosity in Meta’s superior expertise demonstrations, notably specializing in Meta’s massive language fashions and its potential for on-device AI integration,” whereas experiencing the Quest 3 headset Meta just lately launched and Ray-Ban Meta sensible glasses, the corporate mentioned.
After LG shut down its struggling cell enterprise globally in April 2021, the Korean electronics and equipment big shifted its enterprise focus to different development areas, together with sensible houses, linked gadgets, the Web of Issues (IoT), electrical automobile (EV) elements and robotics and — for sure — synthetic intelligence platforms.
In late November, LG mentioned that its dwelling leisure division had newly arrange an prolonged actuality (XR) crew as a part of the group reshuffle to expedite the event of an XR system, aiming for 2025.
“We’re excited to see a longtime chief in shopper electronics share our dedication to constructing the subsequent era of XR gadgets,” a spokesperson at Meta mentioned. “Meta’s imaginative and prescient for a extra open ecosystem relies on collaboration among the many trade’s most revolutionary corporations and we sit up for our work with LG leading to extra methods for folks the world over to learn from the computing platforms of the longer term.”