HD Hyundai Chairman Chung Ki-sun, who is attending the World Economic Forum (WEF, Davos Forum) in Davos, Switzerland, has met again with Palantir CEO Alex Karp. It has been three months since Chung made an unannounced visit to Palantir’s popup store event held in Seoul last October and held a meeting with him.

At this meeting, Chung discussed with CEO Karp ways to expand the strategic partnership between the two companies. They decided to extend Palantir’s big data and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, which have been applied since HD Hyundai Oilbank in 2021 to shipbuilding, offshore, energy, and construction machinery, to major affiliates such as HD Hyundai Electric, HD Hyundai Robotics, and HD Hyundai Marine Solution. For a group-wide AI transformation, HD Hyundai has also launched the “AIX Promotion Office” within HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, the group’s intermediate holding company, and formed a strategic planning team for collaboration between the two companies. The goal is to embed AI across manufacturing-site production and safety management, as well as in office operations overall. Chung said, “This expansion of the partnership is aimed at linking data and work processes across the group into a single flow that leads to more sophisticated decision-making.”

Similar to HD Hyundai and Palantir, there has recently been a steady increase in attempts by the heads of Korean manufacturing companies to frequently meet with global big tech or major AI companies and solidify cooperative relationships.

A representative example is Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. After holding a so-called “Kkanbu meeting” during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) event in October last year, the two held another closed-door meeting at “CES 2026,” the world’s largest information technology (IT) and home appliance exhibition, which was held in Las Vegas, United States, earlier this month. At the venue, Chairman Chung also met Akash Palkhiwala, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Qualcomm, and shortly thereafter Hyundai Mobis signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Qualcomm for cooperation in the fields of software-defined vehicles (SDV) and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).

On the 14th of this month, Park Min-woo, Vice President of Nvidia, was also abruptly recruited as Head (President) of Hyundai Motor’s Advanced Platform (APV) Division. With the appointment of an executive who has a deep understanding of Nvidia technology, expectations are rising that the convergence of the two companies’ technological capabilities will accelerate.

Observers note that big tech companies also gain much from collaboration with the Korean manufacturing sector. To transform their software AI technological prowess into “physical AI” that can be implemented in reality, cooperation with manufacturers that possess production facilities and capabilities is essential. An official at a major domestic conglomerate said, “It is difficult to find a manufacturing-based country other than Korea that has technology, skilled workers, and infrastructure all in place, so it seems likely that more big tech leaders will visit Korea going forward.”

Meanwhile, Chairman Chung Ki-sun has been broadly discussing with major global leaders at the Davos Forum topics including industrial transformation through AI and strategies to respond to the slowdown in global growth caused by geopolitical changes. As he did last year, he is also scheduled to attend a meeting of the energy industry council to exchange views on changes in the global energy market environment.

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