AMD makes a move in South Korea! Joins forces with the government to build an AI R&D center.

AMD signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Science and ICT of South Korea to establish an AI Center of Excellence in South Korea, focusing on building a heterogeneous AI computing ecosystem.

According to South Korea's disclosure on the 27th, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, Bae Kyung-hoon, and AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su signed the memorandum on July 23 local time at the AMD Advancing AI 2026 conference in San Francisco.

Under the memorandum, AMD will initiate the establishment of the "AI Center of Excellence" in South Korea. This center will serve as a collaboration hub, supporting joint research among South Korean enterprises, universities, and research institutions in AI semiconductor software development and computing technology verification, while also opening up AMD's computing resources and software capabilities.

The two sides also reached a consensus to jointly advance the development and demonstration of heterogeneous AI computing infrastructure, combining and optimizing AMD's CPUs and GPUs with locally developed NPUs in South Korea.

Heterogeneous computing refers to the optimal mix of various logic chips such as CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs based on the characteristics of different workloads, rather than relying on a single chip solution.

This trend is accelerating in the global AI semiconductor market. As demand for AI inference continues to rise, service providers are increasingly inclined to flexibly combine different types of chips based on business scenarios and cost efficiency.

Bae Kyung-hoon stated that the global AI competition is rapidly shifting towards heterogeneous computing and open ecosystems. Through collaboration with AMD, it is expected to strengthen the competitiveness of South Korea's AI semiconductor ecosystem and create a new cooperation paradigm to address changes in global AI computing infrastructure.

Lisa Su remarked that South Korea is a key strategic market for AMD, and the company will work with South Korea to actively support its vision of building an open heterogeneous AI infrastructure.