Jensen Huang to Visit Japan Amid 'Passing' Controversy... "Celebrating 30 Years with SEGA"

Attending the 30th Anniversary Event Celebrating Partnership with Japanese Video Game Company SEGA
Unveiling the New AI Product "RTX Spark"

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, who previously sparked controversy for skipping Japan during his visits to South Korea and Taiwan, will visit Japan this week. The visit is to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the partnership between NVIDIA and the Japanese video game company SEGA.

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, was surrounded by a crowd when he visited Taipei, Taiwan last month on the 3rd (local time). Photo by AFP Yonhap News

According to a post by NVIDIA GeForce Japan on X (formerly Twitter) on the 13th, CEO Huang is scheduled to attend a guerrilla event on July 15 in Akihabara, Tokyo, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the partnership between NVIDIA and the Japanese game company SEGA. The event is expected to be attended by Haruki Satomi, CEO of SEGA, former President Shoichiro Irimajiri, and Yu Suzuki, the developer of "Virtua Fighter," among others.

The NVIDIA GeForce Japan account announced that CEO Huang will introduce the company's ultra-high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) product, "RTX Spark," to the public at the event. This product is described as a next-generation AI chip for PCs, combining powerful AI computing with high-performance graphics capabilities, and is said to offer specialized performance for developing AI models, AI services, and gaming. The company also plans to give away the "GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition (FE)" to selected attendees through a raffle.

The relationship between the two companies dates back 30 years. During his commencement speech at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States last May, CEO Huang shared the story of how SEGA invested 5 million dollars in NVIDIA during its early days in the mid-1990s, helping the company avoid bankruptcy. According to the IT media outlet Tom's Hardware, the 5 million dollar investment from SEGA gave NVIDIA the time it needed to develop a new graphics architecture. Subsequently, NVIDIA achieved global success with the release of the RIVA series in 1997 and the GeForce series in 1999.

There is another reason why CEO Huang's visit to Japan is drawing attention. Previously, CEO Huang visited South Korea in October last year and again in June this year, meeting with top executives from major memory semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, as well as high-ranking government officials, and strongly expressed his intention to strengthen collaborations with South Korea. He also stayed in his hometown of Taiwan for two weeks, meeting with executives from leading companies such as TSMC and Foxconn. In contrast, Japan was left out of his Asian tour destinations.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) analyzed CEO Huang's Asian tour in an article published on June 14, stating, "It not only illustrates the decline in Japan's competitiveness in the semiconductor industry, but also highlights the risk that Japan could fall behind in the AI revolution." The article also pointed out, "Compared to South Korea and Taiwan, Japan is less attractive as a partner. Although Japan excels in fields such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment and wafer materials, there are not many companies directly connected to NVIDIA."

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