The Samsung Developer Conference scheduled for this Wednesday in San Francisco is drawing more attention than ever from industry observers with questions about how the hardware-oriented tech titan will break through current technological limits in the face of a sudden leadership change.

This will be also the first major global event for the tech giant since its Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun announced his surprise resignation Friday, citing the firm’s need to break from the old to innovate, in response to the rapidly changing IT industry.

Industry observers are paying attention to the upcoming SDC 2017, a meeting place for hundreds of IT developers that are interested in collaborations with Samsung.

Koh Dong-jin, president of the mobile communications business at Samsung, will deliver a keynote speech at the event, unveiling Samsung’s vision to connect all devices and services in an intuitive way and discuss a new initiative to create a seamless cloud experience for users, the company said.

Koh is expected to unveil an upgraded version of the company’s artificial intelligence program Bixby at the event, with an aim to change disappointment in the market toward the initial version into expectations.

The current Bixby 1.0 based on Samsung’s proprietary technologies has received an unenthusiastic response from users due to what critics call a lack of sophistication and reported frequent errors over the last five months since its launch, which has led to the Korean tech firm hunting for external AI technologies.

Samsung is forecast to announce applications of Viv Labs’ technologies to Bixby 2.0. The firm is a Silicon Valley-based AI platform developer acquired by the Korean company last October.

Also, the tech mogul is expected to unveil its software development kits for Bixby for the first time in a bid to let in global app developers who have technologies fit for the Bixby ecosystem.

“Some technological breakthroughs are really needed for Samsung’s future businesses, or a change in its mindset,” said an industry expert who declined to be named. “Much of its DNA is still oriented in hardware, not software, which has been proved by Bixby’s performance so far.”

Two days before Kwon’s resignation announcement, Samsung had hinted at four new future business areas in which the company is making investments, or plans to do more, at the Samsung CEO Summit held in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The areas are smart machines, the Internet of Things, digital health care and data infrastructure, according to Samsung. The company has invested about $1.8 billion in about 60 startups in those fields.

The announcement was interpreted by industry watchers as the company’s preparations for a new era after its heyday with premium smartphones and chipsets.

Young Sohn, chief strategy officer of Samsung, stressed at the CEO summit, “Samsung is now a data company providing all kinds of data storage devices starting from chips.”

He also cited the company’s moves toward becoming a digital health care company by combining AI, data storage and IoT technologies.

“This may be the last chance for Samsung to seek a change to become a real tech firm with some strong software,” said an industry official. “The timing of Kwon’s resignation also makes sense, which can be interpreted that Samsung should invest more in new businesses while it is seeing record-high profits.”

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)