Lee Jae-yong, chairman of Samsung Electronics, appears to have traveled to Sicily at the end of the month to attend Google Camp, which is held at the Rocco Forte Verdura Golf Resort in southwestern Sicily.
Google Camp is a gathering inspired by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin after the 2013 Davos forum, bringing together political and business leaders every July.
The list of attendees, the schedule, and the topics of discussion are not disclosed. Lee attended the event for three consecutive years starting in 2022, but missed last year to travel to Washington to support U.S. trade negotiations. If his attendance is confirmed this year, it would be his return after two years.
His prior schedule was also notable. During the San Francisco AI Summit on the 24th and 25th local time, Lee visited Nvidia’s headquarters with Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisun Chung and Naver board chair Hae-jin Lee to meet CEO Jensen Huang, and also held an executive-level meeting with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI’s headquarters. During that period, Samsung Electronics agreed to a five-year, $200 billion memory and foundry partnership with Broadcom.
Earlier this month, he also accompanied Han Jin-man, head of the foundry business division, to the Sun Valley Conference in the United States. It is an itinerary that has taken him through three closed-door events in just three weeks.
The key to reading this movement lies in the companions he brought along. The fact that he took the foundry division head to Sun Valley shows the purpose behind this relay of meetings.
The most urgent area on Samsung Electronics’ business map right now is foundry. While the memory business has entered a seller’s market, foundry is different.
As of the third quarter of last year, global market share stood at 71% for TSMC and 6.8% for Samsung Electronics, leaving a still-overwhelming gap. But the trend is changing. After securing a Tesla AI chip order last year, Samsung laid the groundwork for a rebound, and this year reports from foreign media said utilization rates had risen above 80%. That was down from below 50% at one point in 2025.
The reason the chairman is intervening directly at this stage has to do with the nature of the deals. AI chip foundry contracts are multiyear agreements worth trillions of won, and they involve entrusting highly confidential design information to the contractor. This is not a deal that can begin with working-level negotiations.
Trust between top executives becomes a prerequisite for the contract. The interpretation that Tesla’s order was won on the basis of Elon Musk’s long-standing relationship with Samsung fits the same context.
The Broadcom agreement is an example of how effective this approach can be. In business circles, it was described as the result of hands-on effort. With this deal, Samsung Electronics for the first time incorporated a large-scale contract that bundles memory, foundry, and packaging. In other words, it turned the advantages of an integrated device manufacturer into a sales weapon that competitors would find difficult to imitate.
Google Camp is where the next target of this strategy gathers. Google designs its own AI chip TPU, and Meta designs its own inference chip. Both companies have their orders tied up with TSMC, whose production capacity is effectively sold out.
The incentive to seek an alternative foundry is greater than ever. Securities analysts have also noted that Apple, following cooperation in image sensors, is increasing inquiries related to 2-nanometer processes.
Opinions are divided over the practical effectiveness of the chairman’s networking.
Those who see it as a success point to the contracts. In their view, it is hard to deny a causal link when major orders from Tesla and Broadcom followed the chairman’s meetings. They argue that private social gatherings are spaces where information and intentions that are difficult to surface at formal negotiating tables can be exchanged, and that access itself is an asset.
The cautionary view points to a dependence structure. If orders hinge on the chairman’s personal relationships, then the organization’s own sales capability does not improve. Another limitation, they say, is that outsiders cannot verify the rate at which meetings turn into contracts. Events like Google Camp, where even the agenda is undisclosed, are fundamentally impossible to measure in terms of performance.
There is also a counterargument that technology comes first. Big tech companies seek alternatives to TSMC not because of a lack of relationships but because of a lack of capacity, and in the end, 2-nanometer yield will determine orders. The view is that reaching 60% yield and recovering utilization created the negotiating table, not the meetings themselves.
The shift in how deals are made is the signal sent by this relay of meetings. Contracts in the AI semiconductor industry are moving away from spot transactions toward five-year strategic alliances. The decision about whom to partner with rests with the board and the CEO, and the place where that decision is made is not a public hearing but a golf resort.
The role of Korean corporate chairmen is also changing accordingly. The center of gravity is shifting from being the final approver within the group to being the external negotiating channel for the global supply chain. The sight of Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won visiting the same event venue in succession is evidence of that.
The next major battleground in the order race will be 2027. Around that time, the mass production of Tesla chips, the full-scale operation of the Taylor fab, and the direction of Apple and Qualcomm orders will be decided. The current meetings are closer to advance investments aimed at that point in time.
A mechanism is needed to convert the opportunities created by a chairman’s personal network into organizational performance. Meetings open the door; contracts are made by the system behind them.
The starting point is yield. Whether with Broadcom or Google, the final decision depends on prototype validation. Observations suggest 2-nanometer yield has entered the 60% range, but a gap with TSMC remains.
If sales efforts run ahead while mass-production capability lags behind, trust can collapse in an instant. Deploying headquarters staff in advance to stabilize initial yield at the Taylor fab and attaching dedicated yield teams for each customer from the contract stage onward are seen as the minimum conditions for preserving the results of the meetings.
Speed is the next issue. It typically takes months for agreements between top executives to flow down into formal contracts, and in that gap the competition may step in. Broadcom-type deals that combine memory, foundry, and packaging involve the interests of three business units, making internal coordination even slower. Industry observers say one possible response is to create dedicated cross-business teams for each customer and establish internal rules requiring working-level negotiations to begin within a set period after a meeting.
Efforts should also be made to transfer relationships into institutions. Deals built on personal ties falter when the individuals involved move on. Embedding structural links into contracts—such as technology roadmap-sharing councils, joint R&D organizations, or advance payments and capacity reservations—would reduce dependence on the chairman. The follow-up negotiations to turn the Broadcom agreement from an MOU into a binding volume contract will serve as the test case.
The government also has a role. One reason big tech companies are considering Samsung Electronics as an alternative is the geopolitical value of U.S.-based production. The significance of the Taylor fab comes not only from technology but also from location. If domestic production bases are to have the same appeal, the pace of power supply, water supply, and permitting must be improved. If factories do not go up on time at home while the chairman is opening doors abroad, orders will ultimately translate into overseas jobs.
What the three days in Sicily will produce will likely remain undisclosed. What can be confirmed is what comes next. The contract documents expected in a few months will be the scorecard for this itinerary.