President Lee Jae-myung on the 31st met Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia (NVIDIA), who visited Korea to attend the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Gyeongju, and discussed ways to innovate the overall AI (artificial intelligence) ecosystem. At the meeting, Nvidia and key domestic corporations gathered to sign memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with the Korean government related to the AI ecosystem in manufacturing, autos, and robots. Following MOUs on investment and technology cooperation that the president signed with BlackRock Chairman Larry Fink and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on the 31st and on the 1st, a joint document was also reached with Nvidia.
In the afternoon at the Gyeongju Hwabaek International Convention Center (HICO), the president received CEO Jensen Huang and said, "Recently, global corporations such as BlackRock and OpenAI have agreed to join a project to develop Korea into an AI hub for the Asia-Pacific region," adding, "We hope Nvidia will also join so that we can build an AI ecosystem where infrastructure, technology, and investment form a virtuous cycle." The presidential office said the meeting is meaningful in that it seeks ways to lay the foundation to achieve the Lee Jae-myung administration's core goals of "top three AI power" and "AI basic society" and to contribute to the international community.
Also attending were Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun, and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin. They agreed to exchange infrastructure and technology in areas including physical AI (AI that perceives and acts in the real world based on hardware), and to cooperate on joint research, talent development, and startup support to that end. Specifically, they plan to expand AI computing infrastructure, including a total of 260,000 of Nvidia's latest GPUs, to meet public and private demand. In addition to hardware installation, they will also collaborate on build-out and operations technology.
In particular, the government also signed an MOU on physical AI between Nvidia and domestic private corporations. Hyundai Motor and Nvidia will promote technology development and talent training for AI autonomous vehicles and AI autonomous manufacturing. Naver said it would contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of physical AI and Korea's mobility industry, including software-defined vehicles (SDVs) based on cloud and AI. SK and Samsung Electronics also decided to invest in physical AI, including building a "digital twin" to improve semiconductor manufacturing processes using Nvidia GPUs.