Why is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang headed to South Korea ahead of Donald Trump-Xi Jinping meeting?

Artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang is headed to South Korea amid the backdrop of his company reaching the milestone $5 trillion market cap. Incidentally, this comes amid the ASEAN Summit and as United States President Donald Trump's and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet this week.

Notably, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are set to meet on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on October 30. This will be their first face-to-face meeting since Donald Trump returned to the White House and amid deteriorating trade relations between the two economic giants due to tariff hikes. The meeting has left the South Korean hosts “in a difficult balancing act”, as per an AP report.

Why is Jensen Huang going to South Korea amid Trump-Xi meet?

So, amid all this, why is Jensen Huang also headed to South Korea? Well to attend the APEC Summit. And he is not alone. Leaders from major Pacific Rim economies, including China, Japan and the US, will join him at the Summit this week in Gyeongju. The annual gathering, which usually pushes for free trade, is now dealing with the impact of sweeping US tariffs.

For Jensen Huang in particular, the Donald Trump-Xi Jinping meet could also result in some positive news for his company Nvidia.

In August, the Trump administration had discussed allowing sale of Nvidia's chips to China, under certain conditions. Further, when he left for for APEC, Donald Trump told reporters aboard the Air Force One that he will speak to Xi Jinping about Nvidia's chips on October 30.

What did Donald Trump tell reporters about Nvidia, China?

Donald Trump praised Nvidia's Blackwell chips as “super-duper” and which will “define the next era of American innovation”. He said he might speak to Xi Jinping about them, but did not elaborate to reporters.

“I think we may be talking about that with President Xi,” Donald Trump said, adding that he is “very optimistic” about his meeting.

This was also confirmed by a senior White House official, who told reporters on October 29, “Trump said he would speak to Xi about Nvidia's state-of-the-art Blackwell AI chips, with sales to China a key sticking point in trade talks.”

Notably, Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chip architecture, is a cutting-edge processor series that underpins advances in AI, data analysis, and defence systems.

While Trump will skip the main APEC leaders’ session, he will attend a private dinner with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and hold several bilateral meetings, including the highly anticipated face-to-face with Xi Jinping, before departing on on October 30 itself.

Nvidia first company to reach $5 trillion mcap mark

On October 29, a day after iPhone maker become the third company to top the milestone $4 trillion value, Nvidia once again led the Big Tech pack by becoming the first $5 trillion company, AP reported. This comes just three months after it also become was first to break through the $4 trillion mark.

The report noted that “ravenous appetite” for Nvidia’s chips is the main reason for the stock's rapid rise since 2023. On October 29, the shares touched $207.86 in early morning trading with 24.3 billion shares outstanding, putting its market cap at $5.05 trillion.

In comparison, Nvidia's value is greater than the GDP of India, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Huang this week sought to downplay concerns of a bubble burst, saying that the generative AI chatbots that were merely “interesting” when they first took hold a few years ago are now becoming so useful that they will be profitable.

(With inputs from AP, Agencies)