KAIST President Kwang-Hyung Lee: "Samsung Must Shake the Board to Overcome Crisis"

Anmin Policy Forum Seminar Presentation
"Unable to Adapt to Changes Caused by AI
Support for Core Technology Development Needed"

President Kwang-Hyung Lee of KAIST attended the Anmin Policy Forum held at The Moim iNBiz in Seolleung, Seoul, on the 1st, delivering a lecture on the topic of South Korea's strategy in the AI era. Photo by Jo Yong-jun

"Samsung must shake up the game to overcome the current crisis."

On the 1st, KAIST President Kwang-Hyung Lee made this remark while attending the Anmin Policy Forum seminar held at iTower in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. President Lee gave a presentation on the topic of "South Korea's Strategy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI)."

President Lee diagnosed that Samsung Electronics' current crisis is similar to Intel's past situation. Intel, which dominated the semiconductor market in the PC era, failed to adapt to the mobile era and lost its hegemony to the UK-based ARM. Similarly, President Lee believes Samsung Electronics has not adapted to the ecosystem shift from mobile to the AI era. He pointed out, "Looking only at semiconductors does not reveal ecosystem changes," adding, "We need to see how the computing model, which forms the ecosystem foundation, is changing."

He advised that to overcome this crisis, semiconductors based on new computing models must be prepared. Since the semiconductor ecosystem moves as a bundle of model-semiconductor-memory-packaging-software (SW), it is not easy to break the current Nvidia-centered system. President Lee emphasized, "We must shake up the game by supporting the development of core technologies so that new models can emerge."

As a strategy needed for South Korea in the AI era, he mentioned "international cooperation." He explained that cooperation is necessary because South Korea lags behind the US and China, which lead AI hegemony, in terms of capital and market size. President Lee said, "We need to form alliances by jointly developing technology with Southeast Asia or the Middle East," citing, "Naver recently formed an AI alliance with Saudi Arabia" as an example.

He also called for strong government-level support. Just as the US recently set AI development directions from a national security perspective, AI industry should be supported as a national strategic industry. On the 24th, US President Joe Biden signed a national security memorandum emphasizing the importance and risks of AI to the military and intelligence agencies. President Lee said, "Since AI is directly linked to national security, the AI industry should be supported like the semiconductor and shipbuilding industries."

Finally, he stressed the need to develop technology that can control AI. President Lee added, "The future where humans and AI coexist is inevitable," and "To coexist peacefully, we must develop technology to control AI."