Jensen Huang: "Korea Holds a Unique Position... Must Seize the Opportunity in the Next-Generation AI Era"

Jensen Huang’s Gift to Korea

"Over the Next Five Years, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Revenue Will Flow into Korea"

"Manufacturing, heavy industry, electronics, software, and artificial intelligence (AI) must unite and converge to move toward robotics. Korea is at the world’s top level in all of these fields. That is exactly why I am here."

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, is answering reporters' questions in front of the Yeongbingwan in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 8th. Photo by joint reporters.

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, emphasized Korea’s unique position as he met with reporters in an energized mood right after the private event "Korea AI Ecosystem Reception" at The Shilla Seoul on the evening of June 8. This was immediately following a toast with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Paek Kun-hoon. CEO Huang said, "Korea is a fantastic place to invest in the future of AI," and added, "I have great confidence in Korea’s AI capabilities."

CEO Huang stated, "Korea is one of the world’s leaders in nuclear technology," and continued, "Korea excels in nuclear energy, energy in general, and building factories. Right now is truly a great opportunity for Korea." He further noted, "This is the perfect time for Korea to leverage its cultural foundation, industrial base, and geopolitical position."

Regarding the event held that day, Huang described it as "an occasion to unite the AI ecosystem." He said, "Bringing together a single ecosystem for Korea is the way we can provide support." The event was the final engagement of Huang’s visit to Korea and was a large-scale private gathering attended by major domestic corporations as well as AI startups. It was reported that topics such as generative AI, sovereign AI, AI semiconductor infrastructure, global expansion, and collaboration strategies for the startup ecosystem were discussed.

He also shared his thoughts on the collaborations announced with Korean companies during his visit. CEO Huang said, "The big surprise I prepared for this trip was a few gifts I gave to each CEO," emphasizing, "Over the next five years, hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue will flow into Korea." He explained, "The reason, of course, is because Korea has partnered with NVIDIA across every layer of the AI ecosystem, from energy to chips, infrastructure, robotics, and applications."

Huang noted, "The boom in the AI market is massive," and added, "In the future, AI will become a public good and will be everywhere." He also addressed the stock market’s response by saying, "Everything that happened last week was just noise."

"NVIDIA to Support Korea in Becoming a Global Leader in Physical AI"

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Paek also met with reporters after the event and said, "We have secured the highest priority for the supply of Vera Rubin to Korea," and, "We have also agreed to receive continued support for GPU supply in the future."

Paik Kyunghoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, is speaking to reporters in front of the Yeongbingwan in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 8th. Photo by joint reporters.

There was also a consensus to foster Korea’s physical AI ecosystem. Deputy Prime Minister Paek explained, "While Korea may have fallen behind in large language models (LLM), NVIDIA has agreed to actively support Korea in becoming a global leader in the field of physical AI."

The possibility of hosting NVIDIA’s global developer conference, GTC—the world’s largest AI developer conference—in Korea was also discussed. Deputy Prime Minister Paek said, "We had a very positive discussion about GTC Korea," adding, "CEO Huang had a highly positive view in terms of building an AI ecosystem."

He continued, "Since Korea could become the biggest buyer of NVIDIA GPUs, NVIDIA has also decided to invest in the AI ecosystem together with the Korean government."

"Jensen Huang Frequently Encouraged Investment in Korean AI Startups"

Sunghoon Kim, CEO of Upstage, is expressing his thoughts immediately after the event on the 8th in front of the Yeongbingwan in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Joint Press Corps.

After the event, Sung Hoon Kim, CEO of Upstage, also met with reporters and shared his thoughts. CEO Kim said, "This meeting of startups could be summed up in one word: ‘investment.’" He added, "It would have been a great help that many suggestions were made to investment firms to invest in the startups invited here." He further noted, "It also seemed like encouragement for the startups gathered here to interact with each other more."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.