NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang took to Seoul in early June 2026 to meet the partners and builders behind South Korea’s AI boom — a country he argued is now world-class at manufacturing, electronics, software, and AI. Over a week of meetings, Huang announced AI factory plans, memory partnerships, and robotics deals, and threw the first pitch for the Doosan Bears.
One Ecosystem
The trip concluded with a reception at The Shilla Seoul hosting roughly 200 partners from every layer of the Korea AI ecosystem — industrial leaders, venture investors, and young entrepreneurs. “This is Korea’s ecosystem,” Huang said. “Next year I hope to see this be 10 times larger.” The gathering rounded out a week that included surprise visits to PC bangs and a KBBQ summit with the heads of NAVER, LG, and SK.
AI Factories at Gigawatt Scale
Korea is racing to build sovereign AI infrastructure. NAVER plans to expand its GAK Sejong AI data center from 55 megawatts toward gigawatt scale, using the NVIDIA DSX platform for training, post-training, and inference. NAVER is also the first Korean company in the NVIDIA Nemotron Coalition and plans an AI Agent Platform in Korea later in 2026. SK Telecom is planning a gigawatt-scale AI Cloud in Korea, while LG Group announced an AI factory spanning robotics, autonomous driving, data centers, and GPU cloud services.
Partners Across the Stack
- SK Group: a multiyear agreement to co-develop memory for four NVIDIA platforms across AI infrastructure, personal AI, and physical AI
- Hyundai Motor Group: deeper work across mobility and physical AI
- Doosan Group: expanded collaboration in physical AI, robotics, and AI factory infrastructure across Doosan Robotics, Bobcat, and Enerbility
- NAVER, LG, SK: a late-night Korean BBQ summit in Hongdae, with “HBM” snacks passed out to the crowd
Gaming Roots and RTX Spark
Huang traced NVIDIA’s origins to its earliest bet on computer graphics: “Almost all great technology started out as toys.” He unveiled RTX Spark at T1 Base Camp with six-time League of Legends world champion Faker and showcased PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, Subnautica 2, CINDER CITY, and AION 2 on the new superchip with KRAFTON and NC at Seoul PC bangs.
What This Means
With Vera Rubin in full production and a massive AI buildout ahead, Korea’s memory leadership gives it a singular role in the global AI supply chain. Huang’s message — “Go Korea” — was really an alignment call: line up the memory, the factories, the robots, and the games, and Korea becomes irreplaceable infrastructure for the AI era.