Bae Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, said on the 8th that Korea will be given top priority to receive Nvidia's next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator "Vera Rubin."
After meeting with Nvidia Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jensen Huang at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul that day, Bae said, "(Nvidia) agreed to support us so that there are no setbacks in supplying graphics processing units (GPUs)."
On additional volumes beyond the 260,000 GPUs agreed to be supplied by Nvidia last year, Bae said, "This is something the Korean government needs to prepare for," adding, "There will be no problems supplying for future additional projects beyond the existing supply plan."
Bae said, "Korea may have fallen behind in large language models (LLMs), but it has shown the determination to surge ahead in physical AI, and Nvidia has decided to actively support this so that Korea can lead the world."
Bae also told CEO Huang that the government would support investment in the AI ecosystem at the government level, and said Huang responded that he would invest in our AI ecosystem together with the Korean government.
When asked whether CEO Huang had decided to provide Korea with price benefits, Bae said, "(Huang) sees Korea as a country with the foundation of an AI powerhouse, so I think he can extend much goodwill."
Bae also said that when he asked Huang, "Why are you so active in Korea?" Huang answered that Korea's cultural, industrial and geographic strengths can create great synergy when combined with the AI industry.
When asked about the possibility of holding Nvidia's annual developer conference GTC in Korea, Bae answered, "CEO Jensen Huang was thinking very positively."