Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.
Nvidia CEO expresses 'tremendous confidence' in Korea's semiconductor manufacturing field
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks during a special session at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Gyeongju, Friday. Yonhap
By Lee Gyu-lee
GYEONGJU, North Gyeongsang Province —Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has reaffirmed his faith in Korea’s technological landscape, announcing a series of collaborations with the country’s leading companies – Samsung, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group and Naver – and its government, including the supply of a total of 260,000 Nvidia Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) to Korea.
“I have tremendous confidence in Korea’s semiconductor manufacturing and design capabilities,” the CEO said during a media event following his speech for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Gyeongju, Friday.
“We are very happy to partner with Korean companies on high-bandwidth memory (HBM)3e and HBM4. I am 100 percent confident that Samsung and SK hynix will be long-term partners of ours to create HBM4, HBM5 and HBM97 … As you know, Korea is world-class in memory technology; the world's best country at making memory technology of every kind.”
The company has unveiled major plans to supply 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) to Samsung Electronics, SK and Hyundai to build new artificial intelligence (AI) factories, along with another 50,000 GPUs to the Korean government for the national projects and 60,000 to Naver to expand AI infrastructure.
“It’s brand new opportunities for both Nvidia, of course, and the companies that announced it … The 260,000 (GPUs), along with what's already here in Korea, would make Korea one of the leading nations in AI infrastructure capabilities,” he said, expressing optimism that Korea will benefit from AI infrastructure expansion.
“Together, we will create a rich, vibrant ecosystem here in Korea. And one of the opportunities for Korea also is because now that you have this incredible AI infrastructure, you can also attract companies from outside of Korea to operate their AI here in Korea … So, it has a great chance to be a regional AI hub and one of the largest AI hubs in the world.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, left, gives a DGX Spark to SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won after Huang's special session at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Gyeongju, Friday.
He shared that he is eyeing Korea as a uniquely promising candidate to lead the era of rapid AI-driven industry transformation, emphasizing its exceptional capabilities in physical AI — not just in the design and production of robots but also their direct deployment in the market.
“Those industries (that will benefit from physical AI) happen to be the industries of Korea; making ships, cars and chips … The opportunity for Korea for physical AI and robotics is very significant because Korea has the expertise and the technology,” he said.
“Korea can create the robots, which then work in factories, to create more robots … You can do it all completely here, which is an extraordinary thing. Very few countries in the world have both the expertise and technology to create and use the robots.”
Regarding the timeline for the hundreds of thousands of GPU deployments, Huang pledged to move as quickly as possible.
“We're going to have to do it as fast as possible, but it will still take many months. And the reason for that is because we need land, power and shelf. And of course, building factories is something Korea is very good at,” he said.
“So once we get started, I think Korea will move very, very fast. And I'm very committed to supporting all of my friends and partners here to get those GPU superclusters and AI supercomputers up and running as soon as possible.”