Jensen Huang, NVIDIA Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said on the 31st that "Korea is a rare country that has all the elements essential for success in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry—software, science and technology, and manufacturing capabilities," adding, "It will become one of the countries with the largest AI infrastructure in the world."
Huang took the final special session at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit held at Gyeongju Arts Center in North Gyeongsang on the 31st. Before the session began, a video played saying that as Korea rose to prominence as an e-sports powerhouse, GeForce, the graphics chipset for personal computers and NVIDIA's flagship product, grew along with it.
Introducing examples of cooperation with Korean corporations, Huang said he would supply a total of 260,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) to domestic corporations including Samsung Electronics, SK, Hyundai Motor, and NAVER. GPUs are components that boost AI performance and efficiency and are in short supply worldwide.
He said, "NAVER was an early partner of NVIDIA and built the third large language model (LLM) in the world. This week, it decided to add 60,000 GPUs to its infrastructure. Samsung and SK will each receive an additional 50,000 GPUs and plan to build AI factories based on them."
NVIDIA has partnered with Hyundai Motor to develop Autonomous Driving cars, and it was confident that AI will transform the production process. Huang said, "By leveraging AI, robots can control robots and run factories. Hyundai Motor also plans to convert to such factories."
He also suggested collaboration with domestic universities and Start - Up. He said, "We will join hands with KAIST and Korean Start - Up to build an AI ecosystem so everyone can benefit. We will also work with the government, educational institutions, and research institutes. Korea will become a nation with AI sovereignty."
Huang said AI is creating new possibilities in every industry. Workplace software such as Excel and PowerPoint are tools used by humans, but with AI combined, they have been reborn as "agents that work on their own." He argued that as the AI industry advanced rapidly over the past two years, it has evolved from merely memorizing to reasoning and thinking.
He saw a need for an enormous number of AI factories around the world. "AI continuously converts energy to run computers, so factories are necessary," he said. "After the adoption of AI began to generate real profits, corporations have been explosively increasing capital expenditures. The same is happening in Korea."