Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly heading to South Korea next week. This would be his first visit to the country in over a decade as he last visited the country, which was his first ever trip to Korea, back in June 2013.
There aren't a lot of details about his trip available at this point in time, but it's believed that Zuckerberg may meet with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong. The two had held a long meeting during Zuckerberg's previous trip as well.
Zuckerberg's heading to Korea for the first time in a decade
It was reported back in 2013 that Zuckerberg and Lee Jae-yong held a marathon seven-hour meeting which resulted in Samsung launching its Gear VR platform in collaboration with Oculus, a VR company owned by Meta. The two held a follow up meeting later that year to discuss further collaboration.
The Meta CEO has maintained ties to the Lee family, sending funeral flowers on the passing of Samsung's late chairman, and Lee Jae-yong's father, Lee Kun-hee in October 2020. He also sent an email expressing his condolences to Lee Jae-yong, paying tribute to the late chairman's leadership of the conglomerate.
Given Meta's increasing focus on artificial intelligence and Zuckerberg's personal interest in the field, it's likely that AI will be at the top of the agenda if a meeting between the Meta CEO and Samsung Electronics chairman takes place.
Samsung is trying to position itself as a key manufacturer of AI chips, and with Meta requiring AI chips to power its future endeavors, it's possible that the two companies may see multiple avenues of collaboration.
Whether this also results in a new collaboration on mixed reality products remains to be seen. Zuckerberg has recently been laying into the Apple Vision Pro, highlighting all of the ways how Meta's headsets are better. Samsung is believed to be working on a new mixed reality headset as well, so perhaps the two companies may come together in this segment as well.
