Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin attended the Sept. 3 launch of Foundry School in Washington, joining U.S. officials and technology executives at a State Department and Stanford University program aimed at building advanced-manufacturing talent. Held at the Trump Institute for Peace, the event drew Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg and executives from Meta, Micron Technology and Applied Materials. Foundry School, which will run 17 sessions across eight campuses with seven university partners, is an action strategy under Pax Silica, a U.S.-led forum launched in December 2025 to realign supply chains for semiconductors, AI, advanced manufacturing and energy among trusted allies. Against that backdrop, Shinsegae’s partnership with Reflection AI was highlighted as a key Korea-U.S. AI supply-chain example. The companies signed a March agreement for a planned 250-megawatt data center in South Korea and are now forming a joint venture and selecting a site; the collaboration is regarded as the first project under the State Department’s AI export program. Helberg called Chung a solid partner in the AI supply chain alliance, while Reflection AI CEO Misha Laskin cited the collaboration as a model of allied cooperation. Chung said Korea and the United States could create greater synergy by joining forces and pledged to nurture AI talent through creative innovation.