Ten domestic AI startups, including Marinachain, are collaborating with OpenAI.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo) held the 'K-Startup & OpenAI Matching Day in US' event at the headquarters of OpenAI, a leading global AI company located in Silicon Valley, USA on the 14th, and conducted a final presentation evaluation of startups that will participate in the 2024 global corporate collaboration program and collaborate with OpenAI.

At a public meeting held in June last year with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups agreed to jointly foster promising Korean startups in the AI field through a global corporate collaboration program with OpenAI.

Last December, the 'K-Startup & Open AI Matching Day' event was held in Korea, and 220 startups that applied for the collaboration program with OpenAI were selected through document screening and preliminary presentation evaluations.

Fourteen promising AI startups that passed the domestic preliminary round once again stood on stage in front of executives at OpenAI's headquarters in the United States.

Following the encouraging remarks by Lim Jeong-wook, Director of the Startup and Venture Innovation Office of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and Lim Jeong-taek, Consul General of the Republic of Korea in San Francisco, there were heated presentations by startups. The event was held and various Q&As took place with OpenAI executives.

After the presentation, based on the on-site evaluation by OpenAI executives, three companies, ‘Marinachain’, ‘Waddle Co., Ltd.’, and ‘ClayWant Co., Ltd.’, won the ‘Most AGI Potential Award’.

The highlight of the event was the visit of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, which was not originally scheduled. Sam Altman encouraged the startup representatives and had a Q&A session. The startup representatives asked various questions about the GPT-5 release plan, the future of AI technology, AI chip production, etc., and Sam Altman answered each question sincerely.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups selected 10 startups to participate in the 2024 Global Corporate Collaboration Program by comprehensively reviewing the evaluation results of experts affiliated with OpenAI and the requirements for participation in support projects.

The 10 companies are: AceSlip, CliWant, DK MediInfo, Marina Chain, Next Payments, Nine Watt, Run Korean In Korean, Turing, Wardle, and WeLaser.

The final selected startups will receive commercialization funds (up to 200 million won) from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and will be able to receive credits for using OpenAI services, expert mentoring, and consulting from OpenAI.

Minister Oh Young-joo said, “I hope that the startups that participated in this event will grow into globally competitive AI companies through collaboration with OpenAI,” and added, “The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will continue to expand collaboration with global companies that lead each industry, such as OpenAI, to improve the technology development capabilities of promising domestic startups and expand their global presence.”