Korea accepts 1st batch of Nvidia GPUs under large-scale AI infrastructure plan

Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung, left, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, center, and Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, right, wave their hands at an event hosted by Nvidia in Seoul, Oct. 30. Joint Press Corps

The Korean government has received the first batch of Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) as part of the company's plan to deploy 260,000 units to the country, government sources said Monday.

The government executed 1.4 trillion won ($952.7 million) in budget to bring in 13,000 GPUs from Nvidia, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT and other sources.

The shipment reportedly contains multiple GPU models, including Nvidia's latest B200.

A GPU is a high-performance semiconductor chip designed to handle many calculations simultaneously and is widely used to train and run AI models.

The government plans to allocate the GPUs to universities, research institutes, startups and public-sector organizations.

The project follows Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang's announcement in late October that the company would deploy 260,000 GPUs to Korea in partnership with the government and major companies, including Samsung Electronics, to build large-scale AI factories in the country.

Under the plan, the government will use 50,000 GPUs to build a national sovereign AI platform, while Samsung Electronics, SK Group and Hyundai Motor Group are each set to receive 50,000 units. Naver will receive 60,000.