"While He Made Time for Korea": Japanese Media Shocked as Jensen Huang Skips Japan

“How Many Japanese AI Companies Are There Now to Discuss Innovation With?”
Japan’s ‘Digital Deficit’ Projected to Reach 18 Trillion Yen by 2035

It has been reported that the recent 5-day visit to Korea by Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has come as a shock to the Japanese information technology (IT) industry.

Yonhap News Agency

On June 14, Japanese media outlets such as Nikkei reported that after meeting with the management of TSMC and Foxconn in Taiwan, CEO Huang traveled to Korea, where he held a series of meetings with Euisun Chung, Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, Koo Kwang-mo, Chairman of LG Group, and Lee Haejin, Chairman of Naver, among others.

Japanese media commented on CEO Huang's visit to Korea, noting that he is "making time to expand his connections with Korea." They also analyzed that "while Taiwan's TSMC is responsible for manufacturing AI semiconductors, the key memory HBM is handled by SK hynix and Samsung Electronics," and that "as the core of the AI supply chain is being formed around Korea and Taiwan, Nvidia is naturally putting significant effort into these countries."

Nikkei pointedly asked, "How many AI companies in Japan are there that Jensen Huang would make time to visit in person and discuss innovation?" The outlet further assessed, "Whether Japan remains merely a customer of leading companies like Nvidia in the AI era, or emerges as a true partner, will be a key issue that determines the future of the Japanese economy."

At the Nvidia GTC 2026 event held in March this year, CEO Huang unveiled 103 'AI Native Companies' expected to lead the AI era. While numerous companies from the United States, Europe, and China—including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Mistral AI, and Cohere—were included, not a single Japanese company made the list.

Japan's business community sees this not as mere coincidence, but as a structural issue. There are very few large-scale language model (LLM) companies in Japan capable of competing in the global market, and the scale of Japan's AI startup ecosystem is also considered to lag far behind that of the United States and China.

In the past, during the smartphone revolution, Japanese component manufacturers such as Sony, TDK, Murata Manufacturing, and Kioxia were able to seize growth opportunities by becoming part of the Apple ecosystem. However, the situation has changed with the AI revolution.

In an interview with the local media, a Japanese IT industry insider said, "U.S. AI companies are visiting Japan, but in many cases, they see Japan more as a market to sell their services rather than as a joint development partner." In fact, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has projected that the country's 'digital deficit'—caused by increased imports of digital services—could grow to as much as 18 trillion yen by 2035.

This is also why Japanese media are giving such extensive coverage to Jensen Huang's visit to Korea. It is not simply because Korea is in the spotlight, but because of a growing sense of crisis that Japan is being left behind in the wave of AI innovation. With the AI industry emerging as a core sector that determines national competitiveness, beyond semiconductors, attention is focused on whether Japan can move to the center of innovation or will be pushed aside as merely a consumption market.

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