The announcement came on the sidelines of the APEC Summit held in South Korea, where Nvidia announced a series of cooperation agreements with four of the country's largest corporations: Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and NAVER Cloud – a leading cloud computing provider comparable to Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud.

According to Nvidia, following these agreements, the total number of the company's AI chips used in South Korea will more than quadruple, from 65,000 to over 300,000 chips. The company did not disclose the contract value or detailed deployment timeline, but affirmed that this is part of a national strategy for sovereign AI – a global trend as countries seek self-reliance in AI infrastructure and models.

Nvidia predicts the sovereign AI market will reach $1.5 trillion in the next few years. In its second-quarter financial report released in August, the company stated that national AI projects could contribute more than $20 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2026.

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From left to right: Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Eui Sun, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae Yong, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo: Chosun Daily

This initiative is seen as a strategic move by Nvidia amidst the US-China trade conflict, which has caused the company to almost lose its entire Chinese market, which once accounted for 25% of its global revenue. According to analyst Gil Luria of DA Davidson, " to sustain growth, Nvidia needs to expand aggressively into other markets to develop its AI data center segment."

Specifically, under the new collaboration framework, Samsung, SK Group, and Hyundai will build their own “AI factories,” each deploying approximately 50,000 GPUs (graphics processors used for AI). Naver Cloud will expand its AI infrastructure with 60,000 GPUs. Meanwhile, the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) will purchase an additional 50,000 NVIDIA GPUs over the next few years, through the national computing center and in collaboration with companies such as NHN Cloud and Naver Cloud. The ministry will also use Nvidia software to develop national AI models.

Raymond Teh, Vice President of Business Development for Asia Pacific at Nvidia, said these agreements will help domestic businesses and organizations build AI cloud computing infrastructure right in South Korea, instead of relying on external resources.

Hyundai Motor Group will use Nvidia's Blackwell GPU chips in its AI factory to accelerate the development of self-driving cars and intelligent robots. SK Telecom, a subsidiary of SK Group, will deploy Nvidia GPUs to develop industrial AI computing infrastructure for the Asian region.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will leverage Nvidia's chips and AI systems to optimize semiconductor chip design and manufacturing. Notably, SK Hynix is ​​currently the largest memory supplier for Nvidia's AI systems, alongside Micron (USA), while Samsung also supplies memory components to the company.

Analysts believe that South Korea – with its world-leading semiconductor, automotive, and robotics industries – is becoming one of Nvidia's strategic hubs in Asia, and the "AI Kkanbu" alliance between NVIDIA, Samsung, and Hyundai could be the beginning of a comprehensive AI ecosystem in South Korea.

(According to Yahoo Finance)

Jensen Huang drinks beer and eats fried chicken with the Chairmen of Samsung and Hyundai. The meeting between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae Yong, and Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Eui Sun at a casual beer and fried chicken restaurant in South Korea is attracting attention.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/nvidia-ban-260-000-chip-ai-cho-han-quoc-2458516.html