Mark Zuckerberg’s Asia tour includes AI, swords, headsets, and an Indian wedding
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Japan on Monday as part of a brief tour of Asia, which included activities such as sword-making and trying out mixed-reality headsets in Seoul. Additionally, he reportedly attended extravagant pre-wedding festivities for the son of an Indian billionaire. Zuckerberg shared videos on social media showcasing his experience learning about crafting katanas with a sword master, demonstrating his skills in hammering molten metal and wielding a blade.
Bloomberg News reported that the 39-year-old had been skiing in Japan with his family and was scheduled to meet with Facebook developers in Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday.
According to South Korean media, Zuckerberg was expected to travel to South Korea, where he will meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol and executives from tech titans Samsung and LG.
“Mark is planning a short visit to the country and is planning some key meetings,” Meta said in a statement to AFP, without giving further details.
South Korea is home to some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world’s leading manufacturers of memory chips.
These two are among the few companies in the world that make high-end memory chips tailored for AI processors.
During his trip to South Korea, Zuckerberg will meet with the CEO of consumer technology giant LG Electronics to discuss the development of a mixed reality headset that will compete with Apple’s Vision Pro, the Korea Economic Daily reported.
In India, Zuckerberg was scheduled to attend the pre-wedding celebrations of the son of Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of oil-telecom giant Reliance Industries, on 1-3. March, Bloomberg said.
Meta, Google and others have poured billions of dollars into Reliance’s digital unit Jio Platforms as it seeks to take on Amazon and Walmart in India’s vast e-commerce market.
Bloomberg reports that Zuckerberg is also working on artificial intelligence services and building relationships with business and government leaders in the region. Zuckerberg and others have talked about efforts to build general artificial intelligence, or artificial intelligence as intelligent as the average human, despite concerns about the future dangers of AGI to humanity. Samsung, on the other hand, has reportedly established a new semiconductor research and development unit called “AGI Computing Lab” in Silicon Valley to develop the next generation of chips.
Ambani, 66, is the 10th richest person in the world, according to Forbes’ list of real-time billionaires, while Zuckerberg is in fourth place.
The other 1,000 invitees from politics, business, Bollywood and cricket to the pre-wedding of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, the industrialist’s daughter, reportedly include Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump.
