During his visit to Asian countries this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday that Meta wants to beef up its cooperation with Samsung Electronics for AI chips in order to offset the geopolitical risk issue in Taiwan, where TSMC, the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, is headquartered.

Presiding officers Zuckerberg and Yoon discussed the possibility of increasing cooperation in the artificially intelligent and extended reality industries, according to a spokesperson of the South Korean presidential office who spoke today (in Korean).

The processors are manufacturing and procurement, and the invention of new technologies that are more efficient than the current generation of chips. That has now become a major priority for any company working in the AI field and so too have they become a focus for Meta for the future of its social media and hardware devices businesses.

According to reports, Zuckerberg met Samsung's executives, which included Samsung executive chairman Jay Y. Lee, on Wednesday night to discuss potential collaborations around AI chips, semiconductors, and extended reality. A Samsung spokesperson declined to comment on Zuckerberg's meeting with Samsung when reached by TechCrunch for comment on the report but did not dispute it.

Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC is opening its first chip fabrication plant in Japan as it tries to diversify its supply chains away from Taiwan amid a tech war spiking in Washington and Beijing. TSMC-owned Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, established by the Japanese government and the corporations in 2020, said construction on the plant was starting this April. JASM is looking to establish its second chip plant in Japan, and construction is set to start in late 2024.

Meta's founder also met the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday where AI and semiconductors were discussed. Japan aims to revive its chip-making industry said to be about 10 years behind Taiwan and South Korea when it comes to chips next generation.
 
Zuckerberg's visit coincides with what has now become a big race globally for AI chip supremacy. There's still room for countries that have always dominated processors, or want their innovation juices flowing again; what technology companies building AI businesses are eager to support to relieve themselves of their dependence on Nvidia. In that direction, the social media giant has upped the ante in getting the AI chips in place and is even working on an in-house AI chip for its data centers known as Artemis. Big tech companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon and Google have equally been scrambling for AI chips in order to support their AI ambitions.

Ambition of Meta on XR: Meeting with LG
Today's meetings form part of a series of visits that Meta Chief Executive officer has been conducting in the region. Yesterday, during his Asian tour, the Meta chief executive met LG Electronics Chief Executive William Cho. LG Electronics said it met with Zuckerberg for two hours to discuss possible strategic cooperation with the two companies on developing extended reality XR devices.

In a series of questions posed by TechCrunch, a spokesperson for LG Electronics responded that while no actual plans were mentioned, LG Electronics and Meta "have been working closely even before the top management meeting yesterday," and were expecting more opportunities moving forward. Nothing was shared on financial terms or what products specifically a collaboration would involve.

An LG representative said that "The two CEOs discussed the strategic directions and timeline of the partnership," referring to what local reporters have quoted company CEO Cho saying immediately after the meeting.

LG, meanwhile, hopes to take Meta's extended reality (XR) platform to LG content and consumer devices-for example, its TVs-to form a "distinctive ecosystem" in the Korean company's newly set-up XR business, LG said in a statement.

LG is like every other tech company in the world today blowing the AI horn. But in reality, that hasn't yet had a very big impact in the AI race — neither as a chipmaker, nor as a developer of AI-centric products, nor in services. This would represent an opportunity for LG to team up with a company that has taken it a notch higher, yet not a direct competitor of LG concerning its considerable consumer electronics business, and, most importantly, balance the gigantic dependency on some bigger players in AI space such as Google and OpenAI.

Case in point: Cho pointed out that the company is particularly "expressed a keen interest in Meta's advanced technology demonstrations, notably focusing on Meta's large language models and its potential for on-device AI integration," while experiencing the Quest 3 headset Meta recently launched and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, the company said.

After LG shut down its struggling mobile business worldwide in April of 2021, the Korean electronics and appliance giant channeled its business focus toward other areas of growth like smart homes, connected devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), electric vehicle (EV) components, and robotics and needless to say, platforms based on artificial intelligence.

LG said late November that its home entertainment division had set up a new extended reality (XR) team, part of an organisation reshuffle it has implemented to speed the development of an XR device, which the company hopes to launch in 2025.

We're excited to see a long-time leader in consumer electronics share our commitment to building the next generation of XR devices," said spokesperson for Meta. "Meta's vision for a more open ecosystem depends on collaboration among the industry's most innovative companies and we look forward to our work with LG resulting in more ways for people across the world to benefit from the computing platforms of the future.