Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will visit Korea next month. This is to attend an artificial intelligence (AI) event held by MS in Seoul next month. During his visit to Korea, CEO Nadella is expected to meet with KT CEO Kim Young-sup and other Korean companies to discuss cooperation in the AI sector.
According to Microsoft on the 11th, Microsoft will hold the “Microsoft AI Tour in Seoul” at the Yangjae aT Center in Seoul on March 26. The event, which will be held in major cities around the world, is a place to introduce Microsoft’s new AI technology and related market trends. It was held once in April last year in Korea, but CEO Nadella did not participate at the time. CEO Nadella will attend this year’s event as a keynote speaker and share opinions on how AI, which has recently developed rapidly, is changing the way people live and work across the world, including the Asia-Pacific region.
GitHub CEO Thomas Domke also plans to visit Korea for major sessions and workshops.
CEO Nadella’s visit to Korea came more than two years after attending the Microsoft Ignite Spotlight on Korea event held in Seoul in November 2022. At that time, CEO Nadella met with NCsoft CEO Kim Taek-jin and others to discuss ways to collaborate.
For this reason, it is highly likely that CEO Nadella will visit officials from major domestic companies to discuss partnerships in the AI sector during this visit to Korea. In particular, it is known that it will discuss additional cooperation with KT, which has joined hands for the AI business.
In September last year, Microsoft announced a business cooperation plan aimed at developing Korean-specific AI solutions, Korean-style cloud services, and establishing AX (artificial intelligence conversion) companies in the KT and AI business sectors. The two companies’ investments total 2.4 trillion won.
Consultations are also expected to take place to introduce the AI agent “Copilot,” which MS is pushing for as a core business, to major domestic companies. In November last year, Microsoft introduced new AI agents and functions for companies at its own event, Ignite 2024, saying it would “open the era of AI agents.”
Attention is also drawn to whether Microsoft will unveil new services and products at this event. At the previous event held in Seoul last year, Microsoft introduced the Korean version of Microsoft 365 Copilot.
CEO Nadella’s visit to Korea is also expected to affect Microsoft’s recent move to enter the domestic public cloud market. In December last year, Microsoft acquired the Cloud Service Security Certification (CSAP) “Ha” grade certification from the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA). Acquiring this rating will allow it to enter the public work system market, where information is less important. Recently, as competitor Google received the same ‘lower’ rating and Oracle plans to push for higher ratings, there is also a possibility that Microsoft can speed up its entry into the domestic public cloud market with the CEO’s visit to Korea.
Meanwhile, major global big tech heads, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and CEO Nadella, have recently visited Korea, and the industry believes that Korea has been recognized as an important base in the global AI competition.
[Reporter Kim Tae Sung]
link
