OpenAI's Altman to visit Naver after Nvidia CEO's trip

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will visit Naver on June 16 during a two-day trip to South Korea, meeting with major Korean companies including Naver, Kakao, and Samsung Electronics to explore AI partnerships. The visit follows Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent meeting with Naver founder Lee Hae-jin at Naver’s headquarters in Seongnam, where Huang praised Naver as a 'world-class AI company' and discussed potential cooperation in AI infrastructure, robotics, and Nvidia’s Nemotron Alliance. Naver’s appeal lies in its vast user data assets from search, shopping, content, and mapping services, alongside its 20 million creator ecosystem generating over 630 million pieces of content annually. The company’s 'product-native LLM' strategy focuses on optimizing AI for specific services like search and reservations rather than relying solely on general-purpose models. Industry sources suggest OpenAI is interested in Naver’s data, service experience, and infrastructure, while Nvidia sees Naver as a key AI infrastructure partner. Naver’s strengths in cloud technology and AI talent were highlighted by Huang during his visit, reinforcing its growing role in global AI development. Naver is also expanding into agentic AI services, where AI assists users with tasks like reservations and purchases. The back-to-back visits by Altman and Huang underscore Naver’s strategic position in the AI race, with competition now hinging on data quality, service integration, and scalable infrastructure. A Naver official noted the shift in AI competition, emphasizing that securing high-quality data and service experience is now as critical as model development. Global tech leaders are increasingly recognizing Naver’s combined strengths in AI models, data, and infrastructure as a competitive advantage.