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Samsung chair Lee Jae-yong has extended a billionaire charm offensive, hosting Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani for talks over deepening the relationship between two of the region’s most powerful conglomerates.
Ambani, chair of India’s Reliance Industries, visited Samsung’s headquarters in Seoul where he tested new gadgets, including an augmented reality headset and cutting-edge display panels, according to the South Korean technology conglomerate.
Lee has been holding a series of high-profile meetings as he seeks to keep his company in a strong position for the global artificial intelligence build-out.
In October, he met Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and Hyundai chair Chung Eui-sun at a fried chicken restaurant in Seoul to discuss AI factories. Earlier that month, he met OpenAI’s Sam Altman to talk about building data centres and providing next-generation memory chips.
“We expect to strengthen our co-operation with Reliance in supplying 6G network equipment, building AI data centres and providing [energy storage system] batteries for stable energy supply of data centres,” said Samsung.
Ambani’s Reliance is expanding into the information technology sector from its existing chemical and retail-focused businesses and has recently launched a subsidiary to develop AI infrastructure and data centres in India in partnership with Alphabet and Meta.
Samsung has a strong presence in the country, where it manufactures smartphones and home appliances and supplies network equipment.
The group has kept close relations with Reliance since Lee’s father and former chair Lee Kun-hee controlled the company. In 2012, Samsung won a deal to build a 4G network in India for Reliance’s Jio, India’s biggest mobile operator with more than 500mn subscribers.
Their co-operation expanded in December 2022, when Samsung signed another contract with Reliance to supply 5G network equipment.
Alphabet and Meta, along with private equity firms KKR and General Atlantic and sovereign wealth funds, have ploughed billions of dollars into Jio, which is expected to list next year.
Lee Jae-yong was the only South Korean businessman invited to all the weddings of Ambani’s children, according to Samsung. He attended the wedding of Ambani’s youngest son in Mumbai in July last year after attending his eldest daughter’s and son’s nuptials in 2018 and 2019.
Reliance Industries did not respond to a request for comment.
This year, Lee was cleared of accounting fraud and stock manipulation charges, allowing him to focus on turning around the group’s chip business.
Samsung, along with South Korean rival SK Hynix, signed a deal with OpenAI last month to supply semiconductors for the ChatGPT maker’s $500bn Stargate data centre project.
The chipmaker is trying to win bigger customers to reduce billions of dollars in losses in its contract manufacturing business as it competes against industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Additional reporting by Chris Kay in Mumbai
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