President, Prime Minister, and National Assembly Meet With WithMasters and SK Group…Discussions on Cooperation in Health, Energy, and AI… From SMRs and Vaccines to Eco-Friendly Toilets
2025-08-22 10:32:34
Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation, speaks during his courtesy visit to President Lee Jae-myung at the Presidential Office in Yongsan, Seoul, on the 21st. /Newsis 2025.08.21.
During his visit to Korea, Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation, engaged in wide-ranging activities, meeting with political leaders, major conglomerates, and innovative SMEs. His efforts are seen as a move to broaden collaboration in Korea’s strategic sectors, including global health, energy, and AI-based future industries.
According to industry sources on the 22nd, Gates met with President Lee Jae-myung the previous day at the Presidential Office in Yongsan to discuss global health cooperation, small modular reactors (SMRs) as next-generation nuclear power, and ways to meet the AI industry’s soaring power demand. Gates emphasized that “SMRs could be a solution to meet the energy needs of the AI and semiconductor industries,” to which President Lee responded that “Korea is also deeply interested in developing next-generation nuclear power.”
Speaking to reporters afterward, Gates highlighted the need for Korea to expand its Official Development Assistance (ODA), adding, “AI technology will also play an important role in developing and distributing medicines.” Immediately after the presidential meeting, he also held talks with Prime Minister Kim Min-seok and attended a meeting of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Unification, and Trade Committee, extending his outreach to the political sphere.
That same afternoon, Gates met with Kim Jong-ho, CEO of WithMasters, in Yeouido, Seoul, to review progress on the development of an eco-friendly toilet (HRT). The HRT is a next-generation toilet system that can operate in areas without sewage infrastructure: feces are treated through high-temperature drying into harmless pellets, while wastewater is decomposed by microorganisms, filtered, and reused. Since 2011, the Gates Foundation has invested $400 million in sanitation and wastewater improvement projects, with WithMasters emerging as a key partner in these efforts.
On August 16, 2022, in Yeouido, Seoul, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, met to discuss cooperation to promote global public health and posed for a commemorative photo afterward. (From left: Ahn Jae-yong, CEO of SK bioscience; Chairman Chey; Bill Gates; and Choi Chang-won, Vice Chairman of SK Discovery.) /SK bioscience
In the evening, Gates joined SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and other senior executives for a dinner meeting at SK’s headquarters in Seorin-dong, Jongno, to discuss cooperation in SMRs, bio, and energy. SK has already invested $250 million (approx. 337.5 billion KRW) in TerraPower, the nuclear innovation company Gates founded.
Furthermore, SK hynix’s HBM production, SK Telecom’s data center business, and SK Innovation’s energy portfolio align closely with Gates’ climate response initiatives. SK bioscience, in particular, has been a key global health partner of the Gates Foundation since 2013, collaborating on vaccine research.
An industry insider commented, “The areas Gates is focusing on—health, climate, and energy—are where Korea’s innovative SMEs and large corporate infrastructure meet. This visit could be a turning point for expanding cooperation between the two sides on a global scale.”
Kim Jeong-gwan, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, shakes hands with Bill Gates, Chairman of TerraPower. /Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy
Earlier in the day, Gates met with Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Kim Jeong-gwan at the Conrad Hotel in Yeouido to discuss energy cooperation between TerraPower and Korean companies. Gates also serves as Chairman of TerraPower, a leading SMR developer.
The meeting was attended by key nuclear officials from the Ministry, including Director Ahn Se-jin. Gates presented Minister Kim with his autobiography, Source Code: The Beginning.
Founded in 2006, TerraPower is considered one of the three leading SMR companies in the United States, alongside NuScale and X-Energy. The company is developing a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), one of the promising next-generation SMR technologies.
The SMR sector is viewed as an area where U.S. intellectual property and Korea’s manufacturing capabilities can create strong synergy. SK Inc. and SK Innovation invested 300 billion KRW in TerraPower in 2022, and Doosan Enerbility plans to supply key equipment for TerraPower’s first SMR project.
Reporter Sungkyu Park (psk@mydaily.co.kr)
– ⓒmydaily (www.mydaily.co.kr)