Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google’s new holding company Alphabet, will visit Korea on Thursday to meet key partners such as Samsung and LG, as well as local start-ups the company supports.

This will be his fifth visit to Korea and the first since he took office as chairman of Alphabet in August. 

During his three-day visit, the ex-Google CEO is expected to meet executives of Samsung and LG, including Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong.

He met the Samsung heir apparent when he visited Korea three years ago. The Korean tech giant is the largest client for Google’s Android mobile operating system.

Google has also teamed up with LG on several projects, such as driverless cars and Nexus phones. LG has recently decided to adopt Google’s Internet of Things operating system to connect its home appliance products via the Web.

He is also scheduled to attend several other events, including a start-up conference at Google Campus Seoul, the company’s start-up accelerator that opened in May, and a tech forum at the National Assembly.  

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)