During the APEC Summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced a landmark initiative: South Korea is set to advance its future with sovereign AI, supported by more than 250,000 NVIDIA GPUs.
Huang emphasized the importance of developing Korea’s entire AI ecosystem, not just its infrastructure.
This comprehensive plan by NVIDIA’s founder and CEO involves a nationwide deployment of GPUs across sovereign clouds and industrial AI factories to bolster South Korea’s AI capabilities.
This announcement represents one of the largest national investments in agentic and physical AI to date. It is supported by a collaboration of leading Korean organizations, including the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, NAVER Cloud, and LG.
The initiative coincides with a separate APEC Summit where world leaders from 21 nations, including the U.S., China, South Korea, and Japan, were gathered.
Celebrating 25 Years of GeForce in Korea
This news builds upon NVIDIA’s long-standing relationship with Korea, a nation that has significantly influenced esports and the growth of PC-bangs.
Continuing this legacy, NVIDIA recently held a GeForce Gamer Festival in Seoul to commemorate GeForce’s 25th anniversary in Korea. The event showcased the latest GeForce RTX technology, offering attendees exclusive previews of unreleased games AION 2 and CINDER CITY, both featuring NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation.
KRAFTON demonstrated PUBG Ally, an AI co-playable character powered by NVIDIA ACE, for its popular game PUBG: Battlegrounds. The festival also included giveaways, live esports matches, such as a StarCraft match between legendary pro gamers Hong Jin-ho (YellOw) and Lee Yoon-yeol (NaDa), and performances by the taekwondo group K-TIGERS and K-POP sensation LE SSERAFIM.
Developing a New Kind of Infrastructure
South Korea, known for its rapid technological advancements, is now embarking on its AI industrial revolution.
A core component of this effort is a sovereign AI infrastructure program led by MSIT. This program will deploy up to 50,000 of the latest NVIDIA GPUs through cloud providers such as NHN Cloud, Kakao Corp., and NAVER Cloud. The initial phase includes 13,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, with more planned for future years.
Building AI Factories: Korea’s Industrial Titans
The private sector’s investment is substantial. Samsung, SK Group, and Hyundai Motor Group are each establishing AI factories with up to 50,000 NVIDIA GPUs, while NAVER intends to deploy over 60,000. This forms the foundation for Korea’s AI-driven transformation across manufacturing, mobility, telecommunications, and robotics.
- Samsung is utilizing NVIDIA CUDA-X, cuLitho, Nemotron models, and Omniverse to create digital twins for semiconductor manufacturing, and is enhancing its robotics capabilities with NVIDIA Cosmos and Isaac GR00T.
- SK Group is developing an AI factory designed to host up to 60,000 GPUs, including an AI cloud powered by NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs. SK Telecom will provide sovereign infrastructure for domestic manufacturers and startups to build digital twins and robotics applications.
- Hyundai Motor Group is collaborating with the Korean government and NVIDIA to establish an NVIDIA AI factory with 50,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. This factory will support AI model training, validation, and deployment for manufacturing, autonomous driving, and robotics. The company plans to use NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor, NeMo, Nemotron, and Omniverse for simulating factory operations.
- NAVER is expanding its NVIDIA AI infrastructure with an additional 60,000 GPUs, focusing on sovereign and physical AI workloads. The company aims to develop industry-specific models for shipbuilding, security, and AI services for Korean citizens.
Korean Language Models and Quantum Research
The Korean government is also investing in fundamental AI research. MSIT is spearheading a Sovereign AI Foundation Models project in partnership with LG AI Research, NAVER Cloud, NC AI, SK Telecom, Upstage, and NVIDIA. This initiative will leverage NVIDIA NeMo software and open NVIDIA Nemotron datasets, using local data to develop Korean language models with advanced reasoning and speech capabilities.
NVIDIA and LG are collaborating to support academic institutions and startups with LG’s EXAONE models, including the EXAONE Path healthcare model, built with the MONAI framework, to aid in cancer diagnosis. LG is also working with NVIDIA to support physical AI startups and academic research.
Furthermore, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) is partnering with NVIDIA to create a Center of Excellence for quantum computing and scientific research. Utilizing its sixth-generation HANGANG supercomputer and the NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform, KISTI will explore hybrid quantum computing, physics-informed AI models, and scientific foundation models developed with the NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo framework.
AI-RAN and 6G: The Next Frontier
To advance next-generation mobile networks, NVIDIA is collaborating with Samsung, SK Telecom, ETRI, KT, LGU+, and Yonsei University to develop AI-RAN and 6G infrastructure.
This intelligent, low-power network technology offloads GPU computation from devices to base stations, which reduces energy consumption and extends battery life, a crucial factor for widespread robotics adoption.
Fostering Innovation With Startups and Training
To support Korea’s emerging AI companies, NVIDIA is expanding the NVIDIA Inception program through a new startup alliance. Members will gain access to accelerated computing infrastructure from partners like SK Telecom, along with support from VC firms including IMM Investment, Korea Investment Partners, and SBVA.
A new Center of Excellence, powered by NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs, will assist startups in developing physical AI applications. Additionally, the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute will provide AI upskilling programs to train Korea’s future workforce.
Rewiring a Nation for Artificial Intelligence
The scope and ambition of Korea’s AI initiative are remarkable.
This effort extends beyond merely deploying GPUs; it involves fundamentally transforming the nation’s industrial foundation for intelligence. From sovereign clouds to quantum labs, autonomous factories, and AI agents, Korea is actively constructing the infrastructure of the future.
