Nvidia to supply 260,000 cutting-edge chips to South Korea in major AI push led by President Lee Jae Myung

Nvidia said on Friday that it will supply 260,000 of its most advanced chips to South Korea, following a meeting between CEO Jensen Huang and President Lee Jae Myung on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

This development comes amid a major Artificial Intelligence (AI) push by President Lee, who has expressed his hope that the country can become a leading nation in the AI domain.

Speaking about the plan, US tech giant Nvidia said it was “working with South Korea to expand the nation's AI infrastructure with over a quarter-million Nvidia GPUs across its sovereign clouds and AI factories,” AFP reported.

Who will receive these chips?

South Korea is home to two of the world's leading memory chip makers — Samsung Electronics and SK hynix — which supply chips essential for AI products and the data centres that power the rapidly evolving industry.

Under the latest deal, a total of 260,000 cutting-edge GPUs will be distributed across key sectors of South Korea's tech and industrial landscape:

Samsung: Under Friday's deal, Samsung Electronics will receive 50,000 chips for its new “AI factory”. “By deploying more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs, AI will be embedded throughout Samsung's entire manufacturing flow,” the Korean tech giant said.

SK Group and Hyundai Motor Group: These companies will also receive 50,000 chips each, for deployment in their respective AI facilities.

NAVER Cloud: The firm, which operates South Korea's largest search engine, will receive 60,000 chips to expand its AI infrastructure.

Government and cloud providers: A further 50,000 chips will be deployed across Seoul's National AI Computing Centre and to other cloud service and IT providers, supporting the nation's AI development.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasised the significance of this deal, saying that “Korea's leadership in technology and manufacturing positions it at the heart of the AI industrial revolution -- where accelerated computing infrastructure becomes as vital as power grids and broadband,” news agency AFP reported.

Jensen Huang spotted with heads of Samsung and Hyundai

Jensen Huang was spotted having dinner on Thursday evening with Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y Lee and Hyundai Motor Executive Chair Chung Euisun at Kkanbu Chicken, a local restaurant in Seoul, South Korea.

The pictures of the trio quickly went viral on social media, drawing crowds of fans, journalists, and even national broadcasters, who aired live footage of the executives eating, drinking and chatting.

During the outing, Huang gifted both Jay Y Lee and Chung Euisun Nvidia-labelled DGX boxes — the firm's series of AI systems. Lee later showed the cameras a note signed by Huang that read: “To our partnership and future of the world!”