Nvidia announced a landmark deal to supply South Korea with over 260,000 of its latest Blackwell AI chips, marking one of the largest sovereign AI infrastructure deals ever disclosed. This strategic collaboration, unveiled at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Gyeongju, involves partnerships with South Korea’s government and major conglomerates including Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and NAVER Cloud. The initiative aims to establish South Korea as a global AI powerhouse through an aggressive expansion of AI capabilities across industries
The South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT is accelerating the deployment of these chips through the National AI Computing Center and leading cloud providers such as NAVER Cloud, NHN Cloud, and Kakao Corp. An initial batch of 13,000 GPUs is being deployed, with plans to scale up to 50,000 GPUs over the coming years to support the nation’s sovereign AI goals focused on boosting AI-enabled economic growth and innovation across automotive, telecommunications, and manufacturing sectors.
Samsung Electronics is set to build an AI mega-factory powered by over 50,000 Nvidia GPUs, integrating AI across the semiconductor manufacturing process using Nvidia’s cuLitho, CUDA-X, and Omniverse technologies. This factory will leverage AI for digital twins and predictive maintenance, aiming to boost manufacturing efficiency and next-generation robot development. Meanwhile, SK Group is constructing Asia’s first industrial AI cloud featuring over 50,000 GPUs, offering GPU-as-a-service to subsidiaries like SK hynix and SK Telecom. Hyundai Motor Group plans to invest approximately $3 billion deploying 50,000 GPUs to advance AI-driven mobility solutions and smart factory operations. NAVER Cloud will complement these efforts with over 60,000 GPUs to support enterprise AI workloads.
The deal has significant strategic importance amid ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions that limit Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market. South Korea’s commitment to developing sovereign AI infrastructure aligns with national priorities for technological self-reliance and global competitiveness. Industry analysts highlight that the GPU deployment will drive demand for millions of associated high-bandwidth memory units, which will further benefit local semiconductor manufacturers like Samsung and SK hynix. The collaboration was highlighted during APEC, reinforcing South Korea’s vision to become a testbed and pioneer in the AI era.
This partnership places South Korea at the forefront of the AI industrial revolution, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasizing the country’s leadership in technology and manufacturing as pivotal to producing intelligence as a new global export.
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