Less than a month after Nvidia announced the plan, the government of South Korea has called the first meeting of a working group that will supervise the radical expansion of the nation’s AI infrastructure and advance President Lee Jae-myung’s ambition of making South Korea one of the world’s top three AI nations, along with the US and China.
Lee also hopes that AI will spark new robust growth for the South Korean economy, which has recently been hit by Donald Trump’s tariffs and associated forced investment in the US. South Korean GDP grew 1.4% in 2023 and 2.0% in 2024, and the Bank of Korea now estimates that it will expand by only 1.0% in 2025.
Year-on-year growth accelerated from 0.6% in the second quarter of this year to 1.7% in the third, but that is still more like perpetually low-growth Japan than the “Asian Tiger” that South Korea used to be.
Chaired by Second Science Minister Ryu Je-myung, the working group includes senior executives from Samsung Electroncs, Hyundai Motor, SK Telecom and Naver Cloud. According to the Korean press, they discussed the deployment of 260,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs and ways to strengthen the nation’s AI ecosystem. When completed, this project will reportedly increase South Korea’s installed GPU capacity by about fivefold.
On September 8, President Lee officially launched the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee, which oversees the implementation of national AI strategy and coordinates the activities of different parts of the government.
The committee is comprised of more than 30 private-sector members assigned to subcommittees in charge of AI infrastructure, data, applications, social adaptation, global cooperation, science and skills development, defense and security.
At the time, President Lee stated that, “Korea now stands at a great historical turning point — whether we become mere followers exposed to the risk of falling behind, or pioneers who seize boundless opportunities. If we move boldly forward and lead the future, artificial intelligence will serve as the key to advancing the structure of our industries, improving the quality of life for our people, and ushering Korea into a new era of prosperity.”
Lee supports a public-private strategy, changes to laws and institutions to facilitate the deployment of AI, and an approach that supports regional economic development. Altogether, it adds up to a make-or-break moment for his economic policy.
On October 30, at the APEC Summit in Gyeongju, Nvidia announced that it is working to expand South Korea’s public- and private-sector AI infrastructure with the deployment of 260,000 GPUs to the Ministry of Science and ICT (Information and Communication Technology), Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, the SK Group, hyperscale data center operator Naver Cloud and other companies.
Explaining the concept, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said, “Korea’s leadership in technology and manufacturing positions it at the heart of the AI industrial revolution – where accelerated computing infrastructure becomes as vital as power grids and broadband. 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.”
Samsung is building a semiconductor AI factory equipped with more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs to create digital twins that should improve the speed and yields of semiconductor manufacturing processes. Samsung is also using Nvidia technology to improve its Ballie home-companion robot. “Ballie is more than a home robot, it’s your buddy.”
Hyundai Motor Group and Nvidia are expanding their collaboration in autonomous driving, in-vehicle AI, smart manufacturing and robotics with a 50,000-GPU AI factory. The two companies are also working with the Korean government to build a national physical AI cluster, including a Nvidia AI Technology Center, Hyundai Motor Group Physical AI Application Center and regional AI data centers.
SK Group is designing an AI factory scalable to more than 50,000 GPUs which will be used to accelerate high-bandwidth memory design, improve yields and develop robotic self-optimizing semiconductor fabs at SK Hynix, and enable SK Telecom to provide industrial cloud digital-twin and robotics-innovatin services to startups, enterprises and government agencies.
Naver Cloud plans to deploy more than 60,000 GPUs to develop AI models for shipbuilding, energy, biotech and other industries, combining Naver digital twins and robotics with Nvidia’s 3D simulation and robotics technologies.
According to CEO Kim Yuwon, “This collaboration marks the beginning of the ‘physical AI era,’ where AI technology practically improves productivity, safety and efficiency in industrial fields.”
South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT plans to deploy up to 50,000 Nvidia GPUs to accelerate AI development for enterprises and industries, working with Naver and other local cloud-computing service providers.
Nvidia is also collaborating with Samsung, SK Telecom, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea Telecom, LGU+ (formerly LG Telecom) and Yonsei University to develop intelligent, low-power AI-enhanced Radio Access Network (AI-RAN) technology.
The idea is to reduce computing costs and extend mobile device battery life by off-loading GPU computation to mobile telecom network base stations. In addition, Nvidia is working on quantum computing with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and a venture-company incubation program run by Ministry of SMEs and Startups.
While the US spawns multiple generations of ChatGPT and rivals including PerplexityAI, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, South Korea’s strategy is to use AI to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the industries that drive its economy. It is an approach subject to practical rather than theoretical and ideological evaluation.
Korean industry can be counted on to make it work within the framework of corporate performance and cash flow management. Within two or three years, it should be clearer what it can deliver in the AI age.
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