China U.S. India. Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Eui-sun is carrying out expansive global management activities by visiting major auto markets at the start of the new year.
Chairman Chung Eui-sun attended the Korea-China business forum held on the 5th in connection with the president's state visit to China and exchanged wide-ranging views with Chinese businesspeople on hydrogen and battery sectors, and on the 6th he visited CES in Las Vegas, U.S., where he met industry leaders including Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, to seek innovation strategies in future fields such as AI and robotics.
He then visited India, the world's most populous market, on the 11th and carried out a hectic schedule to concretize growth strategies by visiting Hyundai Motor's Chennai plant, Kia's Anantapur plant and Hyundai Motor's Pune plant across India from the 12th to the 13th.
Chairman Chung Eui-sun's new year sprint is interpreted as an effort to directly verify business areas that span present and future, such as mobility, hydrogen, AI and robotics, in three major economies with great economic clout and global influence, and to solidify Hyundai Motor Group's standing as a customer-centered sustainable corporation. At this year's Hyundai Motor Group New Year's meeting, Chairman Chung Eui-sun urged that the group must lead new standards for industry and products through continuous structural improvement and strengthening of ecosystem competitiveness, and he emphasized that as industries such as AI undergo major change, there are even greater opportunities for growth.
Chung visited Beijing, China, on Jan. 4-5 to explore strategic cooperation possibilities with local corporations and to observe the rapidly changing local market firsthand. It was his first visit to China in eight months since attending the Shanghai motor show in May last year. Tying in with the president's state visit to China, Chung, who attended the Korea-China business forum held at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse for the first time in nine years, discussed comprehensive collaboration plans across various fields including mobility, hydrogen, batteries and tech.
Chairman Chung Eui-sun first held in-depth discussions on batteries, a key electric-vehicle component, with Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, the world's largest battery company. Chung met Zeng Yuqun at the APEC business leaders' event in Gyeongju in October last year. Chung also exchanged views on the hydrogen business with Hou Qijun, chairman of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC).
Hyundai Motor Group maintains an overwhelming world No. 1 share in the global hydrogen vehicle market and produces hydrogen fuel cell systems at HTWO Guangzhou, its hydrogen business base in China. SINOPEC is fostering the hydrogen industry as a full-fledged strategic industry, recently starting operation of a green hydrogen plant with an annual capacity of 20,000 tons. Chung also met with Jang Naiwon, chairman of Yueda Group, Kia's joint venture partner in China, and formed a consensus on strengthening a steady and developmental cooperative relationship.
To increase sales in the Chinese market, Hyundai Motor launched its first dedicated electric vehicle model, 'Ilexio', locally in October last year and plans to expand its electric vehicle lineup to six models in China by 2030. Kia has been building its EV lineup in the Chinese market, launching at least one electric vehicle each year through 2027 starting with the EV6 in 2023.
▲in the U.S., meetings with big-tech executives including Jensen Huang
Following his visit to China, Chung Eui-sun immediately attended CES 2026, the world's largest IT and consumer electronics exhibition, in Las Vegas, U.S., on Jan. 6-7. Chung sought to understand changes in future areas such as AI and robotics and held meetings with major global big-tech executives, including Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, and Akash J. Palkhiwala, chief operating officer of Qualcomm.
Hyundai Motor Group's subsidiary Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot Atlas made a big impression when unveiled at CES, and Hyundai Motor Group's mobility robot platform Moved won the CES 2026 robotics category's top innovation award, drawing attention to Hyundai Motor Group's AI and robotics capabilities.
Hyundai Motor Group also showcased a group robotics ecosystem covering manufacturing, logistics and mobility, including the quadruped robot Spot and an electric vehicle parking and charging robot. Boston Dynamics revealed concrete plans to emerge as a human-centered physical AI leader, including a strategic partnership with Google's AI organization DeepMind to accelerate future humanoid technology development.
Chairman Chung Eui-sun attracted attention by reuniting with Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, three months after their meeting that was widely discussed as the 'Kanbu gathering.' Hyundai Motor Group and NVIDIA are pursuing various collaborations, including a contract to supply 50,000 Blackwell GPUs and, following last year's memorandum of understanding to enhance domestic physical AI capabilities, plans such as establishing an NVIDIA AI Technology Center in Korea.
Through this, Hyundai Motor Group plans to build a domestic physical AI ecosystem, including AI data centers, to enhance future technology competitiveness in areas such as in-vehicle AI, autonomous driving, production efficiency and robotics.
The Global Leaders Forum (GLF), where Hyundai Motor Group's top executives gather to discuss mid- to long-term strategy and vision, was also held locally in Las Vegas during CES, which is interpreted as a move to build consensus on future innovation strategies.
▲in India, inspection of three Hyundai Motor Group plants
From Jan. 12 to 13, Chung Eui-sun visited Hyundai Motor's Chennai plant in southeastern India, Kia's Anantapur plant in central India, and Hyundai Motor's Pune plant in west-central India in succession to check local production and sales status and mid- to long-term development strategies.
India, with a population of 1.4 billion, is currently attracting attention as the most attractive market in the world. It not only has a strong domestic market based on its huge population, but its young population structure with an average age in the late 20s is expected to give it high growth potential. In particular, the Indian government's vigorously promoted 'Make in India' and the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to foster manufacturing are evaluated as providing an optimal business environment for global corporations.
Hyundai Motor Group, which entered India in 1996 and has firmly established itself as a representative mobility corporation in India, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and aims for a bigger leap through India-specific strategies as the country rises from a simple 'consumer market' to a 'global manufacturing hub.' Currently, Hyundai Motor Group ranks second in India with about a 20% market share. Starting 30 years ago with the Santro, an India-focused model produced at the Chennai plant that sparked a small-car boom, Hyundai Motor Group diversified its lineup into SUVs after completing Kia's Anantapur plant in 2019.
Anticipating growth in the Indian auto market, Hyundai Motor Group acquired GM's Pune plant and has been producing the compact SUV Venue since the fourth quarter of last year. It plans to hold a completion ceremony in the first half of this year and begin full-scale production. Starting with a phase 1 capacity of 170,000 units, it will expand production capacity to 250,000 units by 2028. With the completion of the Pune plant, Hyundai Motor Group will secure a total production capacity of 1.5 million units in India, including 824,000 units at the Chennai plant and 431,000 units at the Anantapur plant.
Also, after Hyundai Motor India was newly listed on the Indian stock market in 2024 in the largest-ever initial public offering, Hyundai Motor Group has further strengthened the transparency of its Indian unit and is actively investing in new products, future advanced technologies and R&D capabilities. It also plans to nurture the India region as a strategic export hub.
During his visit to the Chennai plant on the 12th, Chung Eui-sun received a business report from Hyundai Motor and toured the Creta production line and Hyundai Mobis' BSA plant.
Chung Eui-sun said Hyundai Motor has been able to grow over 30 years thanks to the love of the Indian people and stressed that the company must pursue a home-brand strategy that looks ahead to another 30 years so it can become an Indian national company. To that end, he said Hyundai must maximize differentiated strengths such as vehicle quality and customer-oriented service, which are its fundamental competitive advantages, and build an organizational culture that is not afraid to fail and will try again, sustaining challenge and innovation.
On the same day, Chung Eui-sun checked Kia's production and sales strategy at Kia's Anantapur plant.
Chung said Kia, in its eighth year in India, should set challenging goals because it has great growth potential and opportunities, and must strive to be the best for Indian customers in brand, product appeal and quality in the Indian market. He urged that Kia should not fear failure, should recover quickly when failures occur, and should use a DNA of moving swiftly once a goal is set to achieve steady growth and build a robust brand.
On the 13th, Chung Eui-sun closely inspected the production quality of the new Venue at Hyundai Motor's Pune plant and emphasized the meaning and role of the Pune plant, which has been reborn as a strategic vehicle production base for Hyundai Motor, for the Indian regional economy. Hyundai Motor Group is contributing to local employment expansion and economic revitalization through the activation of the Pune plant.
In particular, Chung Eui-sun did not forget to have a meal with Hyundai Motor and Kia employees and their families and encourage them. He presented Korean cosmetics to the families and expressed gratitude, saying, "Hyundai Motor Group's success in India was possible thanks to the dedication of the families."
[OSEN]