Korea is a country that did not shy away from difficult hardware manufacturing. It has everything from AI chips to steel across the board. If Korea gets good at AI, tremendous commercial opportunities will open up. Please support the startups here.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, delivered a clear message at a closed-door roundtable with domestic robot and AI startups, his final official event during a visit on the 8th. Korea is a rare stage for physical AI that brings together the semiconductor supply chain, manufacturing sites, and robot hardware, and for this potential to lead to a larger industry, investment and customers must come together for robot and AI startups.
At 6:30 p.m. that day, a so-called marketplace for investment and collaboration opened at the Shilla Hotel Yeongbingwan courtyard. Not only did the heads of robot and AI startups collaborating with Nvidia, such as ROBOTIS and AeiROBOT, attend, but also officials from major conglomerates including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor Group, LG Electronics, and Naver, major venture capital firms (VCs) at home and abroad, and government officials, bringing together about 100 people. As figures who rarely gather in one place assembled one after another, invited startup leaders realized the event was a much bigger networking opportunity than expected.
Huang repeatedly stressed to them that Korea is a good investment destination with the conditions to grow a physical AI ecosystem. He cited Korea's strengths as execution that quickly embraces new technology, a diverse manufacturing base, and an industrial position not bound solely to either the United States or China.
Huang then called Bae Kyung-hoon, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, to the stage and emphasized support, saying there are many great startups, so please nurture them well. Riding the momentum, he reportedly called out the VCs in the room and encouraged them to invest, saying what startups need is money.
Those who actually hold money and demand were out in force. In addition to major investment firms such as Korea Investment Partners, IMM Investment, and SoftBank Ventures, officials from heavy industry and shipbuilding, where labor shortages and automation needs are high, including HD Hyundai, Doosan, and Hanwha Ocean, also attended. Nvidia set the stage where VCs could look for investments, conglomerates could scout technologies for on-site application, and startups could meet both funding and customers at the same time.
This is also what surprised startup leaders. In Korea, when conglomerates, startups, and investors gather, hierarchies often surface, but that day the atmosphere was one of free exchange under the common denominator of the Nvidia ecosystem.
AeiROBOT CEO Eom Yoon-seol said, It is not easy for big and small companies to meet and talk freely, and this event was meaningful in that startups met both investors and actual customers at the same time. Angel Robotics Director Gong Kyung-chul said, When the government or conglomerates host, people may be cautious of each other, but under the Nvidia umbrella, the mood became relatively equal and conducive to discussion, adding, It was a venue where Nvidia served as a catalyst.
It is hard to see Huang's encouragement for investment and collaboration in Korea's physical AI ecosystem as a mere pleasantry. The startups gathered that day are corporations that build industrial robots, humanoids, and AI models using Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), robot simulation platforms, and AI model development tools. As they grow, the Nvidia ecosystem grows with them.
Physical AI improves its performance based on data coming from real factories, shipyards, and logistics centers. The more robot startups enter manufacturing sites using Nvidia's platforms, the more industrial data and use cases accumulate. This can in turn lead to broader adoption of Nvidia's robot and AI platforms. The reason Korea, with a diverse manufacturing base not only in semiconductors but also automobiles, shipbuilding, electronics, and steel, is cited as a stage for physical AI collaboration lies here.
Industry insiders say that if Korea's main role in the early days of AI development was concentrated in the memory semiconductor supply chain, in the physical AI phase its significance is growing as a market that brings together chips, robot hardware, manufacturing sites, and industrial data. Over five days, Huang elevated Korea beyond a chip partner to a collaboration stage to implement physical AI on the factory floor. Interest has gathered. The remaining task is to link that interest to real investment and field demonstrations, and for domestic robot and AI startups to prove commercialization potential at manufacturing sites such as shipyards and factories.