Facebook founder Zuckerberg meets with LG Electronics CEO

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg met with LG Electronics Co. CEO Cho Joo-wan on Wednesday to discuss ways to enhance corporate collaborations in the extended reality (XR) sector, officials said.

The CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent company, had a luncheon with Cho and other senior officials from the South Korean electronics giant in Seoul, according to officials from LG Electronics.

Zuckerberg came to the South Korean capital the previous day to have a series of business meetings with key business gurus, including Cho and possibly Samsung Electronics Co. Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

The Cho-Zuckerberg meeting came as the two companies shared mutual interest in advancing XT technologies as a key driver for future innovation and growth.

Last month during CES 2024, Cho expressed the company’s commitment to forging partnerships to expand its presence in the XR market.

Meta released its new virtual reality headset, the Quest 3, at the end of last year in a bid to take a lead in the fledgling XR market. It rivals Apple Inc.’s latest Vision Pro headset, which made its global debut last month.

Other industry sources said Zuckerberg is likely to hold talks with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong to discuss ways to cooperate in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips and XR businesses during his stay in Seoul.

Meta has earlier announced new plans to build its own artificial general intelligence (AGI) and work on a new AI chip.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s No. 1 memory chipmaker, has created a new unit for AGI research and development in Silicon Valley.

Zuckerberg had met with Lee in South Korea in 2014 and visited Samsung Electronics’ R&D lab in the United States in 2022.

He is also scheduled to meet with representatives from at least five unidentified XR startups at Meta Korea’s office in southern Seoul in a closed-door session, the sources said.

Meta reportedly arranged the meeting directly with the startups as part of apparent efforts to advance the company’s XR headset technology.

Zuckerberg is also expected to meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol before departing the country on Thursday to travel to India.

Meta Korea said it cannot confirm any details of Zuckerberg’s trip to Seoul.