Jensen Huang returns to Korea wanting more — chips, robots and a research hub

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pressed Korean chipmakers for more memory chips to power Nvidia's new product lineups and highlighted a robotics partnership with Hyundai Motor that will use Nvidia's AI processors to drive the automaker's robotics business.
 
His requests and anticipated deals came on Friday evening, when Huang, in his first visit to Korea in seven months, sat down for a star-studded dinner with chiefs from SK, LG and Naver at a samgyeopsal (pork belly) restaurant in Mapo District, western Seoul.
 
“Business is booming, and Korea is doing very well. My partners here in Korea are very important to me,” Huang told reporters on the sidelines of the dinner.
 
He also noted that Nvidia's new products — such as Vera Rubin, Vera and RTX Spark, introduced at the Computex Taipei trade show in Taiwan earlier this week — will require more memory, including high bandwidth memory, or HBM, and low-power double data rate, or LPDDR, memory. 
 
“One more thing: Nvidia introduced a brand-new line of robotics processors for self-driving cars. We have a big partnership with Hyundai,” Huang said. “All of my friends, [including those at] LG, SK hynix, Samsung, Hyundai and Naver, [our businesses] are all booming, so I came to congratulate them for their big partnerships.”
 
The processor at the center of Hyundai Motor's autonomous driving partnership is the Nvidia Drive AGX Thor, an in-vehicle AI compute platform designed for advanced driver assistance systems and next-generation safety features.
 
Additionally, Nvidia, Hyundai Motor and the Korean government are reportedly in the final stages of talks to establish an AI research and development center in Korea, which Huang said will be located in Seoul. 
 
“Korea is going to be very, very busy,” he told reporters. “We are also building a very prominent research center here in Korea for AI research. [...] We are currently recruiting, so if you know anyone studying AI, tell them to apply for our center here.”
 
Huang's schedule for his four-day visit is tightly packed with separate meetings with the heads of Korean chipmakers, game and internet companies and AI-related startups, including SK's Chey Tae-won, LG's Koo Kwang-mo, Hyundai Motor's Euisun Chung, Naver's Lee Hae-jin, NC's Kim Taek-jin and Krafton's Chang Byung-gyu.
 
Beyond chipmakers, robotics is expected to be a key focus of Huang's visit. At Computex, he hinted that he sees robotics as central to Nvidia's investment in Korea. His meetings with game companies tie into that stance as well, as NC is developing a robotics AI model, and Krafton established a physical AI subsidiary, Ludo Robotics, earlier this year.