South Korea embarks on AI Revolution with $200 Billion NVIDIA Partnership
South korea is poised to become a global leader in the artificial intelligence revolution, underpinned by a sweeping new partnership with NVIDIA that will see the deployment of over a quarter-million GPUs across the nation. The announcement, made at the APEC Summit, signals a historic investment in sovereign AI infrastructure and a commitment to “rewiring a nation’s industrial base for intelligence,” according to a senior official.
A national-Scale AI Ecosystem
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the initiative, emphasizing the importance of building a extensive AI ecosystem, not just the underlying infrastructure. This aspiring plan involves a national-scale deployment of GPUs across sovereign clouds and cutting-edge industrial AI factories, marking one of the largest national investments in agentic and physical AI to date.The effort is backed by a powerful coalition of Korean organizations, including the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), Samsung Electronics, SK group, Hyundai Motor Group, NAVER Cloud, and LG.
The timing of the announcement coincides with the APEC Summit, where world leaders – including representatives from the U.S., China, Japan, Australia, and Vietnam – are gathered to discuss regional economic cooperation.
Building on a legacy of Tech Innovation
This investment builds upon South Korea’s long-standing history as a technology pioneer. The nation has played a pivotal role in the growth of esports and the “PC-bang” (internet café) boom, fostering a vibrant gaming culture.NVIDIA recently celebrated 25 years of GeForce in Korea with a Gamer Festival in Seoul, showcasing the latest RTX technology and offering hands-on experiences with upcoming titles like AION 2 and CINDER CITY, both leveraging NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation.KRAFTON also previewed PUBG Ally, an AI co-playable char
Leveraging NVIDIA Technologies for Diverse Applications
Leveraging NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor, NeMo, nemotron, and Omniverse for AI model training, validation, and deployment in manufacturing, autonomous driving, and robotics. NAVER is adding 60,000 GPUs to its infrastructure, focusing on sovereign and physical AI workloads for shipbuilding, security, and citizen services.
Advancing AI research and development
The Korean government is also prioritizing foundational AI research.MSIT is leading a Sovereign AI foundation Models project, in collaboration with LG AI Research, NAVER Cloud, NC AI, SK Telecom, Upstage, and NVIDIA. This initiative will utilize NVIDIA NeMo software and Nemotron datasets to develop Korean language models with advanced reasoning and speech capabilities.NVIDIA and LG are collaborating to support academic and startup research, including LG’s EXAONE Path healthcare model, built with the MONAI framework, for cancer diagnosis.
Furthermore, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology information (KISTI) is partnering with NVIDIA to establish a Center of Excellence for quantum computing and scientific research, utilizing its HANGANG supercomputer and the NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform to explore hybrid quantum computing and physics-informed AI models.
Pioneering Next-Generation Networks
NVIDIA is also collaborating with Samsung, SK Telecom, ETRI, KT, LGU+, and Yonsei University to develop AI-RAN and 6G infrastructure. This intelligent, low-power network technology will offload GPU computation from devices to base stations, reducing energy consumption and extending battery life – a crucial step towards widespread robotics adoption.
Empowering Startups and the Future Workforce
To foster innovation, NVIDIA is expanding its Inception program with a new startup alliance, providing access to accelerated computing infrastructure from partners like SK Telecom and support from venture capital firms including IMM Investment, Korea Investment Partners, and SBVA. A new Center of Excellence, powered by NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell gpus, will support startups in building physical AI applications, while the NVIDIA Deep learning Institute will offer AI upskilling programs to train the next generation of korean AI professionals.
The scale and ambition of Korea’s AI initiative are truly unprecedented. It’s not simply about deploying GPUs; it’s about fundamentally reshaping the nation’s industrial landscape for the age of artificial intelligence, building the infrastructure of the future from sovereign clouds to quantum labs, autonomous factories, and intelligent agents.
