SK hynix Weighs ChatGPT for Work as OpenAI Builds Out Its Korean Enterprise Push

OpenAI is expanding fast in Korea's enterprise AI market. A day after Samsung Electronics began rolling out external generative AI to employees, SK hynix said it is reviewing ChatGPT Enterprise for internal use — part of a broader wave of adoption among Korea's largest companies in which OpenAI figures prominently, even as Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft compete hard for the same accounts.

What ties these moves together is less any single product win than a distribution layer that has quietly fallen into place: the IT-services arms of all three of Korea's largest conglomerates now carry OpenAI channels. That is the structure beneath the headlines, and it is worth seeing clearly before reading too much into which chatbot any one company prefers.

SK hynix Joins the Wave, Cautiously

SK hynix is at an earlier stage than Samsung. At a CEO town hall during the New Icheon Forum on June 11, CEO Kwak Noh-jung said the company is reviewing Microsoft 365 and Copilot, and weighing whether ChatGPT Enterprise can be used internally, with security and system architecture under review. He said external AI would be introduced gradually, starting in areas unrelated to national core technologies. SK hynix has so far run an in-house service built on open-source models, which some employees have found limited next to the latest commercial tools.

The caution is the point. For a memory maker whose process technology is a guarded national asset, the hard problem is not which model is cleverest but how to let staff use frontier tools without exposing sensitive work — which is exactly why Kwak framed the review around security and architecture rather than features.

What Samsung Actually Announced

Samsung's rollout, which became official this week, is the larger move. According to industry sources, Samsung is extending external AI for work to a large share of its workforce, beginning with its Device eXperience division. The important detail is how it is structured: Samsung's official plan is to deploy three tools together — OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini Enterprise, and Anthropic's Claude — alongside its in-house model Samsung Gauss, in a "two-track" approach, letting employees choose the tool that fits each task.

Some reporting goes further, claiming that in internal testing of the three services ChatGPT drew the highest employee preference and has become a de facto core tool. That claim is worth flagging rather than repeating as settled: Samsung's own announcement framed the three as a combined, choose-per-task rollout, not a contest with a named winner, and the preference finding comes from industry accounts Samsung has not confirmed. If it were accurate, it would be notable given Samsung's deep, long-running partnership with Google across its Android business — one industry watcher suggested it would mean day-to-day work utility outweighed existing vendor ties — but that "if" is doing real work.

The Channel Layer Is the Real Story

The reason these corporate decisions rhyme is a shared plumbing. SK AX, SK Group's IT-services arm, signed a service-partner agreement with OpenAI last month, joining Samsung SDS — which became Korea's first OpenAI reseller in December and later added ChatGPT Edu rights — and LG CNS, which signed on as a reseller and implementation partner and runs an OpenAI Launch Center. In other words, the in-house IT integrators of Samsung, SK, and LG all now sell and deploy OpenAI's enterprise products. Analysts read Samsung's rollout and SK hynix's review as connected to that framework rather than as isolated choices, and at the group level OpenAI's Stargate agreements already committed Samsung and SK to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise into their operations.

There is a mechanism worth understanding beneath all this. The enterprise versions of these tools differ from the consumer apps in the way that matters to a chipmaker that once banned them: vendors commit, by default, not to train their models on customer data, and offer retention controls and data-processing agreements the public versions lack. That is what makes a two-track design — sensitive work on an internal model, general work on the best external one — governable at all.

A Contest, Not a Coronation

The competitive picture is more contested than any single vendor's momentum suggests. LG is seen as more cautious about external AI because it has its own large model, ExaONE, and a ChatExaONE assistant its employees use internally, which it rates well against rival in-house chatbots such as Samsung's Gauss and SK Telecom's A.X. Tellingly, LG CNS has deliberately kept multiple options, partnering with both OpenAI and Anthropic. Google is pushing Gemini Enterprise into its Workspace base; Anthropic, having named Choi Ki-young as its Korea head, is targeting enterprises with Claude Enterprise; and Microsoft is pairing Copilot with Microsoft 365. In academia, Seoul National University is reportedly moving to offer ChatGPT to its members.

OpenAI has clearly built early enterprise momentum by lining up large corporations, a university, and an IT-services partner network at once. But enterprise AI will not be decided by model performance alone. As one industry figure put it, security, work context, cost, and the speed of organizational adoption will all shape the outcome — which will ultimately be settled not in a preference survey but in how the tools actually perform in daily work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SK hynix using ChatGPT?

Not yet. SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung said on June 11 that the company is reviewing whether to adopt ChatGPT Enterprise and Microsoft 365 with Copilot, with security and system architecture under review. Any rollout would start gradually in areas unrelated to its core technologies; the company currently runs an in-house tool based on open-source models.

What AI tools is Samsung using?

Samsung is deploying OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini Enterprise, and Anthropic's Claude together, alongside its in-house Samsung Gauss model, in a "two-track" approach that lets employees pick the tool suited to each task. The rollout began with its Device eXperience division after a proof-of-concept with about 2,500 employees.

How is OpenAI expanding in Korea?

Beyond individual companies adopting ChatGPT, OpenAI has built a channel through Korea's largest IT-services firms: Samsung SDS, LG CNS, and SK AX have all signed partner or reseller agreements to sell and deploy its enterprise products. That network, plus group-level Stargate commitments, underpins OpenAI's enterprise momentum in the country.

Is ChatGPT the most popular AI tool inside Samsung?

That is unconfirmed. Some industry reports claim ChatGPT was the internal favorite in Samsung's testing, but Samsung's official announcement described a combined, choose-per-task rollout of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude rather than naming a single winner, so the "favorite" characterization should be treated with caution.