Huang's return to South Korea signals deepening AI and semiconductor ties with Samsung, Hyundai, and the Korean government.
Jensen Huang is heading back to South Korea. The Nvidia CEO’s upcoming visit comes as the chipmaker continues expanding its AI infrastructure footprint across the country, where over 250,000 Nvidia GPUs are already deployed in sovereign clouds and industrial AI factories.
For a company that essentially prints money by selling the shovels in an AI gold rush, South Korea represents one of the more strategically important markets on the map. The country is home to Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip manufacturer, and a government that has been pouring resources into sovereign AI capabilities.
A relationship 15 years in the making (again) #
Huang’s most recent high-profile trip to South Korea took place in late October 2025, when he attended the APEC CEO Summit in Gyeongju. That visit was his first official trip to the country in over 15 years, which is a remarkably long absence given that Nvidia’s relationship with South Korean tech firms stretches back to the early PC era.
The October trip was anything but casual. Huang sat down with Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung, two of the most powerful figures in Korean industry. He also held discussions with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, conversations that reportedly centered on future collaborative announcements with local stakeholders.
The visit even included cultural moments, like a dinner featuring traditional Korean fried chicken.
Why South Korea matters to Nvidia #
Samsung’s role in this equation is particularly interesting. As a major memory chip producer, Samsung is both a customer and a potential deeper collaborator for Nvidia. The two companies have intertwined supply chains, with Samsung producing the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips that go into Nvidia’s data center GPUs.
Hyundai’s involvement points to a different angle: robotics and autonomous vehicles. Nvidia’s DRIVE platform and its broader robotics ambitions make Hyundai, one of the world’s largest automakers, a natural partner for deploying AI at the intersection of mobility and manufacturing.
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