# Lee Courts Anthropic's Amodei in San Francisco Push to Draw AI Investment to Korea > Meeting the Anthropic chief on a Bay Area swing, President Lee Jae-myung pressed for the company's investment and attention as Seoul prepares a sharp expansion of AI spending, with a security cooperation pact set to follow. - Source: Korea First - Canonical URL: https://koreafirst.tv/article/lee-courts-anthropic-s-amodei-in-san-francisco-push-to-draw-ai-investment-to-korea - Author: Korea First Staff - Section: Tech - Published: 2026-07-24T23:23:09.571Z - Updated: 2026-07-24T23:23:09.571Z - Tags: Lee Jae-myung, Anthropic, Dario Amodei, artificial intelligence, AI investment, San Francisco --- President Lee Jae-myung sat down with Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the American AI company Anthropic, in San Francisco, using a rare face-to-face with one of the industry's most prominent figures to make a direct pitch for investment in South Korea's fast-growing artificial intelligence sector. The meeting came during a two-day swing through the Bay Area built around a single goal, drawing money and expertise into a field Seoul has made a national priority. Lee opened warmly, telling Amodei he was glad to meet someone world-famous and noting that the executive is well known in South Korea. ## A direct pitch for investment Lee did not disguise what he wanted. With South Korea planning to sharply expand its investment in AI, he told Amodei, he hoped for the company's special attention, investment and contributions. The request framed Anthropic less as a vendor than as a partner Seoul wants embedded in its build-out. Amodei answered in kind, thanking Lee for the priority his government places on AI and saying he expected broad cooperation with the country. He singled out data centers as an area of particular interest, the physical backbone that any serious national AI effort has to secure. ## A security pact to follow The warm words are set to be followed by something more concrete. Anthropic and South Korea's science ministry plan to sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in AI security and the cyber industry, a step that would give the relationship an official footing beyond a single meeting. Such agreements are typically statements of intent rather than binding commitments, but they matter as signals. For Seoul, a named partnership with a leading American lab helps validate its ambition to be more than a hardware supplier in the AI economy. ## One stop on a crowded itinerary Amodei was not the only Silicon Valley leader on Lee's schedule. The president was also set to meet Sam Altman of OpenAI and Jensen Huang of Nvidia the same day, a lineup that reads like a map of the AI supply chain, from the models to the chips that train them. The choice of company is telling. Korea already sits at the center of that chain through its memory chip makers, and the trip suggests a government trying to convert that hardware strength into a broader role in the software and infrastructure layers where much of the value now accrues. ## The stakes for Seoul No investment figures were attached to the meeting, and the specifics of Korea's expanded AI spending were left undisclosed. What the day offered instead was positioning, a head of state personally lobbying the people who set the direction of the technology, in the city where many of those decisions are made. Whether the courtship yields data centers on Korean soil or research ties that outlast a photo opportunity will depend on the follow-through. For now, the message Seoul wanted to send was simple, that Korea intends to be a destination for AI capital, and that its president is willing to make the ask in person. --- Originally published by Korea First. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://koreafirst.tv/article/lee-courts-anthropic-s-amodei-in-san-francisco-push-to-draw-ai-investment-to-korea.