OpenAI will host a technology showcase event in Korea for startup founders. Following Nvidia, global artificial intelligence (AI) companies appear to be strengthening their business targeting startups and the government in the Korean market. Competition among global companies is expected to intensify in earnest over the Korean market, which is active in adopting new AI-related technologies.
According to the industry on Thursday, OpenAI will hold "OpenAI Founder Day" in Gangnam, Seoul, on the 15th of this month. The event introduces startup founders to OpenAI's technology and ways to apply it to their businesses. Mark Manara, head of startups, and Terry Yu, in charge of multimodal API products, among others from headquarters, will attend to share how to use Codex, OpenAI's coding tool, and how to design multimodal applications.
Anthropic is also accelerating its push into the Korean market. Last month, Anthropic appointed Choi Ki-young, former head of Snowflake Korea, as chief of Anthropic Korea. On the 18th of this month, Anthropic will host "Push to Prod Seoul," a hackathon for startups, together with AI-based software development platform Replit and Korea Investment Partners. The event is part of a hackathon series Anthropic operates worldwide, and it will be held in Korea for the first time.
The industry views OpenAI and Anthropic, both undergoing initial public offering (IPO) procedures in the United States, as intensifying their efforts to secure the government and startups as customers in the Korean market. OpenAI has indeed signed memorandums of understanding (MOU) with Korea Water Resources Corporation and Korea Technology Finance Corporation in succession recently. With Korea Water Resources Corporation, it is pursuing ways to proactively respond to floods and droughts by applying OpenAI's AI technology. With Korea Technology Finance Corporation, it is reviewing ways to use AI in evaluating the technology and business models of startups. The move is seen as OpenAI accumulating business experience in the AI transformation (AX) of public infrastructure in the Korean market before expanding into corporate sales.
Anthropic is also expected to aggressively pursue sales targeting startups and others through Choi, who is well-versed in corporate sales in the Korean market. Choi has worked at Microsoft, Adobe, Google Cloud, and Snowflake. A startup industry official said, "OpenAI strengthening its sales targeting the government and public institutions appears to be a step toward moving them first and then capturing corporate customers." The official added, "Securing one or two large corporations is also important, but they judged that securing many in the government and startups is positive for the lock-in effect and revenue."
