Nvidia is going to South Korea with 260,000 chips!

Nvidia announced on Friday that it will supply 260,000 of its most advanced chips to South Korea. CEO Jensen Huang met with President Lee Jae Myung and executives from South Korea's largest companies on the sidelines of the APEC summit.

South Korea is home to two globally recognized memory chip manufacturers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, which produce chips critical for artificial intelligence products and the data centers required by the growing industry.

President Lee expressed hopes for the country to become a leading artificial intelligence power. Nvidia stated, “We are working with Korea to expand the country's artificial intelligence infrastructure” and promised to supply about a quarter million Nvidia GPUs.

According to the agreement made on Friday, 50,000 graphics processing units will be allocated to a new “artificial intelligence factory” built by Samsung Electronics. Samsung reported, “Using more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs, artificial intelligence will be integrated into our entire production flow.”

SK Group and Hyundai Motor Group will also receive 50,000 chips for use in artificial intelligence facilities, while South Korea's largest search engine, NAVER Cloud, will acquire 60,000 chips to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Additionally, 50,000 chips will be distributed to the National Artificial Intelligence Computing Center in Seoul, as well as to cloud service and IT providers. Nvidia CEO Huang stated, “Korea's leadership in technology and manufacturing is critical in the artificial intelligence industrial revolution. Accelerated computing infrastructure is becoming as vital as energy grids and broadband.”

This week, Huang aims to build closer relationships with tech giants in South Korea. On Thursday, he shared fried chicken and beer, which is among the most beloved foods in South Korea, with Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Chung Eui-sun.

Nvidia made history by reaching a market value of $4 trillion in July, and after announcing new initiatives, its market value rose to $5 trillion. Its chips support a significant portion of the global artificial intelligence industry and were also a topic during the recent talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Beijing is accelerating its chip industry to overcome export restrictions on critical components imposed by the U.S. Nvidia is positioned amid this geopolitical conflict, and its chips are not yet available for sale in China due to Beijing's bans and U.S. national security concerns. Huang called for the U.S. to allow the sale of American-made artificial intelligence chips to China to ensure that Silicon Valley companies remain a global power in providing artificial intelligence.

After meeting with Xi, Trump remarked, “We discussed the chips,” indicating that Huang would reach out to Beijing to resolve the situation. “We are in a sort of referee or advisory role,” Trump stated.