OpenAI Holds Series of Meetings With Korean Startups as AI Rivalry Intensifies

Industry Report

Anthropic Opens Seoul Office

Chinese Startup MiniMax Markets Models at One-Sixth the Price

OpenAI Feels Pressure Over Korean Market Share

Company Signals Partnership Push and Sounds Out Investment

Fee Discounts and Contract Extensions Also Discussed

OpenAI is strengthening partnerships with South Korean startups as it expands its footprint in the country’s enterprise artificial intelligence market. The move is aimed at checking Anthropic’s recent arrival in Korea while fending off Chinese AI companies that have entered with low-cost offerings.

According to people in the startup industry, OpenAI employees including Head of Startups Marc Manara and Asia-Pacific Head of Startups Thomas Jeng attended NextRise 2026, an event hosted by the Korea International Trade Association, last month. The two executives, both based at OpenAI headquarters, arrived in Korea on June 14 ahead of the event and stayed through June 20.

Industry officials said it was unusual for senior OpenAI executives from headquarters to remain in Korea for about a week. Although the official purpose of the visit was to attend the conference, they spent most of their time in back-to-back meetings with at least 20 Korean startups, including MakinaRocks, SelectStar, Wrtn and MangoBoost. The discussions appeared aimed at expanding the use of OpenAI models in Korea’s enterprise AI market and reinforcing the company’s influence.

Most Korean companies have yet to build their own large AI models. As a result, they typically use models from U.S. or Chinese companies as the engine for enterprise AI services. OpenAI, the first major global AI company to enter Korea, had held an advantage in the market. The landscape shifted this month after Anthropic opened a Seoul office and after MiniMax, often called China’s OpenAI, began aggressively courting cost-burdened startups last month.

One AI industry official said a key performance indicator for OpenAI’s startup organization is the number of global services adopting its application programming interfaces, or APIs. Intensifying competition appears to have added to the sense of urgency inside the company.

In meetings with Korean startups, Manara expressed a strong willingness to work together and mentioned the possibility that OpenAI headquarters could consider investing in companies with deep partnerships, according to industry officials. The company also offered some startups promotional discounts on usage fees. Some of them have agreed to extend contracts to continue using OpenAI models.

Competitors are also stepping up their campaign for market leadership. Anthropic, which opened its Seoul office last month, has been broadening its outreach to local startups and developers by hosting events such as Builder Day. It is also continuing to expand its dedicated Korea sales team.

Chinese AI companies, along with U.S. rivals, are also digging into the market by targeting small and midsize businesses and startups. MiniMax, which is promoting pricing at about one-sixth the cost of U.S. AI models, obtained a list of portfolio companies from a Korean venture capital firm late last month and has been approaching them about adopting its video and voice generation models.

Heo Jin, Korea Economic Daily reporter hjin@hankyung.com