South Korea is gearing up for one of the biggest boosts to its AI power yet, as Nvidia joins hands with the government and top companies to deliver more than 260,000 advanced AI GPUs.
The deal, announced during the APEC meetings in Gyeongju, will see Nvidia collaborate closely with the Ministry of Science and ICT, Samsung, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and cloud firms such as Naver and Kakao. Funding details were not disclosed, but local reports value the GPU plan at up to $10 billion over several years.
“This will support South Korea’s prosperity as it strives to become one of the top three global AI powerhouses,” said Bae Kyung-hoon, Korea’s deputy prime minister and minister of Science and Information and Communication Technologies.
A national AI ambition
For months, South Korea has been grappling with a shortage of the powerful GPUs needed to train complex AI systems. This single deal, one of the largest of its kind for any country, is set to more than quadruple the nation’s AI chip stock.
An official close to the matter highlighted the scale of this upgrade.
“In a closed-door meeting, Huang said the US has about 20 million GPUs, the most in the world, followed by China. Korea’s total of 300,000 now puts it in third place globally,” said Ha Jung-woo, presidential secretary for AI and future planning, in a statement to The Korea Herald.
The government says the investment will form the backbone of “sovereign AI” — computing infrastructure fully controlled by the nation. Through the Ministry of Science and ICT, it plans to deploy over 50,000 of the latest Nvidia GPUs. These will be spread across the planned National AI Computing Center and local cloud providers like NHN Cloud, Kakao, and NAVER Cloud.
This infrastructure will be made available to researchers, startups, and companies, allowing them to build AI models without relying on foreign technology platforms.
Alongside the government’s investment, the country’s biggest companies are preparing major capacity increases of their own.
Samsung is building an “AI factory,” equipped with more than 50,000 GPUs to support semiconductor development and advanced digital systems. SK Group will create Asia’s first industrial AI cloud using Nvidia’s RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell chips, while Hyundai Motor Group prepares to apply 50,000 GPUs to autonomous driving and smart manufacturing programs.
Naver Cloud is also expanding its computing infrastructure, adding 60,000 GPUs to scale its AI models and enterprise services.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang praised the push, saying, “Just as Korea’s physical factories have inspired the world with sophisticated ships, cars, chips and electronics, the nation can now produce intelligence as a new export that will drive global transformation.”
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Strategic shift amid global tensions
The South Korea deal also reflects Nvidia’s shifting focus amid US-China trade restrictions. The company has faced limits on selling its most advanced chips to China, prompting a stronger push into other Asian markets.
During press interactions, Huang expressed interest in eventually selling Blackwell-series chips to China but noted there are currently no plans to do so.
The GPU deployment will begin next year and continue through the decade.
For Nvidia, this news marks another major win in its global expansion strategy, reinforcing its dominance in the AI chip market after becoming the first company to hit a $5 trillion valuation.