SEOUL, July 02 (AJP) - The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea launched a new AI Leadership Council on Thursday, bringing together senior executives from major global technology, finance, manufacturing and mobility companies as South Korea seeks to sharpen its position in the intensifying global race for artificial intelligence.
The council was unveiled at the AMCHAM AI Forum 2026, held at the Grand Hyatt Seoul under the theme “Powering Korea’s AI Future: Partnership, Policy, and Scale.”
More than 150 senior government officials, industry leaders and technology experts from South Korea and the United States attended the forum, which focused on Korea’s national AI strategy, global technology trends, investment conditions and the policy framework needed to expand the country’s AI ecosystem.
The launch underscored how artificial intelligence has become a central pillar of the economic and strategic partnership between Seoul and Washington.
South Korea, already a global leader in semiconductors, manufacturing and digital infrastructure, is trying to move beyond its traditional strengths in hardware and become one of the world’s leading AI economies.
“Korea has a unique opportunity to help shape the next era of global innovation,” James Kim, chairman and chief executive of AMCHAM, said in opening remarks. “Realizing that opportunity will take more than technology — it will take partnership, sound policy, and the ability to scale.”
Kim said the new council would seek to strengthen public-private collaboration and deepen U.S.-Korea cooperation to help ensure Korea remains globally competitive.
The AMCHAM AI Leadership Council will be chaired by Kim and include senior executives from Apple, Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Cohere, Corning, J.P. Morgan, Lam Research, OpenAI, PTC, Qualcomm and Tesla. AMCHAM said the group would represent the full AI value chain, from semiconductors and cloud infrastructure to AI platforms, advanced manufacturing, mobility and financial services.
The council is expected to provide industry views on AI policy and regulation, data governance and ecosystem development, while creating a channel for closer cooperation between government and business.
James Heller, chargé d’affaires ad interim at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, framed AI not only as a technology competition but also as a matter of shared economic opportunity. He described AI as a “tool for shared prosperity” and said that “winning the AI race” was not something the United States could achieve alone.
That effort, he said, would require close cooperation with allies such as South Korea.
The comments reflected a broader shift in U.S.-Korea economic ties, as both governments and companies increasingly view AI, semiconductors, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing as strategic sectors tied to national competitiveness.
South Korea has enacted an AI Basic Act and has set a goal of becoming one of the world’s top three AI powers, while Korean conglomerates have announced large-scale plans tied to chips, AI data centers and physical AI.
Rep. Cha Jiho of the National Assembly delivered a special policy address outlining Korea’s national AI strategy and the policy direction needed to strengthen the country’s competitiveness. Cha’s remarks were followed by Heller’s congratulatory address, then keynote speeches by Spencer Kim, vice president and president of Qualcomm Korea YH, and James Ryu, president of the AI Committee at SK SUPEX Council.
Spencer Kim said the industry was moving from conventional AI into a more advanced era of agentic and physical AI. If conventional AI systems such as ChatGPT represented the first stage of AI, he said, agentic AI represented the second stage and physical AI the third.
In his keynote address, titled “The Year of Agents,” Kim said agentic AI would begin reshaping user experiences in 2026 by understanding context across multiple devices and delivering appropriate outcomes in real time. He said Qualcomm would continue working with partners across smartphones, PCs, automobiles, robotics and data centers, supported by low-latency and energy-efficient technologies.
Kim also invoked popular culture to describe where he believed AI was headed.
He said he liked the film “Iron Man” and predicted that artificial intelligence resembling Jarvis, the assistant in the movie, would eventually become reality.
Ryu of SK SUPEX Council used his address, “From Chips to AI Tokens,” to argue that Korea’s next challenge is to convert its semiconductor strength into broader AI leadership. He said competitiveness in the AI era would be defined by the ability to produce high-quality AI tokens more efficiently.
SK Group, he said, wants to help Korea evolve “from a semiconductor-exporting nation into an AI token-exporting nation” and become “the world’s most trusted partner in the global AI ecosystem.”
Kim Kyeong-man, deputy minister of artificial intelligence policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, presented the government’s AI policy priorities under the theme “K-AI Blueprint 2026: Advancing Toward a Global AI Leader.” He said the government would continue strengthening Korea’s AI ecosystem while expanding global cooperation.
“As Korea strives to become one of the world’s top three AI nations, the government will continue strengthening the competitiveness of its AI ecosystem while deepening global cooperation,” he said.
He added that the government was committed to ensuring that the benefits of AI innovation were broadly shared and contributed to people’s well-being around the world.
Industry presentations examined the building blocks of a competitive AI ecosystem, including infrastructure, industrial AI adoption, AI assurance, cybersecurity and foreign investment.
Kim Young-hoon, director of Korea and Japan public policy at Amazon Web Services, discussed global AI adoption trends and customer success cases as companies move from experimentation to AI deployment at scale.
Dr. Helen Teixeira, managing director of Unit 42 JAPAC at Palo Alto Networks, warned that the cybersecurity landscape was changing rapidly as frontier AI lowered the barrier to sophisticated attacks.
She said companies and governments were in a brief but critical “defender’s window,” in which AI could be used to identify systemic vulnerabilities before malicious actors weaponized the same capabilities at scale.
Through initiatives such as Project Glasswing and continuous agentic defense systems, she said, organizations could move from reactive patching to proactive exposure management and better protect the infrastructure that will power the next era of innovation.
Jason Chan, vice president of data and innovation at UL Solutions, said trust would be central to AI adoption. AI could drive growth, he said, but only when built on governance and transparency. Independent testing and certification, he added, would be essential to building confidence across the AI life cycle.
Alex Kim, vice president and general manager of PTC Korea, focused on manufacturing AI and the potential for Korea and the United States to combine their respective strengths.
“The key to AI success is not the volume of data, but the structure that connects it,” he said.
Kim said the most important question for companies was no longer whether to adopt AI, but who could implement and scale it faster. To realize AI’s full value, he said, companies would need to go beyond technology adoption and redesign how they work.
“When Korea’s strong manufacturing foundation is combined with the United States’ AI intelligence layer, it will usher in the era of true Physical AI,” he said.
Lee Ji-hyung, president and chief executive of Invest Seoul, presented Seoul as a global AI investment destination, citing the city’s talent base, capital and digital infrastructure. He said Seoul was committed to attracting leading global AI companies and helping them succeed while contributing to Korea’s AI transformation.
The forum concluded with a panel discussion on the policy frameworks, investment conditions and collaborative initiatives needed to accelerate AI adoption across industries and strengthen Korea’s position as a leading AI economy.
For AMCHAM, the council represents a new platform in its long-running role as a bridge between the Korean and American business communities.
Founded in 1953, AMCHAM is the largest foreign chamber in Korea, with more than 800 member companies and affiliates.
As AI becomes an increasingly important part of economic policy, industrial strategy and diplomacy, AMCHAM officials said the organization would continue working with stakeholders in both countries to promote innovation, a predictable policy environment and public-private cooperation.
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