South Korea-Nvidia AI partnership expands

In early July 2026 Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae‑yong met Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in the United States to discuss next‑generation high‑bandwidth memory (HBM4/4E), advanced packaging, autonomous‑driving chips and Nvidia’s role in Samsung’s planned AI data‑center ecosystem, a meeting that lifted Samsung shares about 10 %.

A week later the chairs of Samsung, SK Group and Naver joined Huang near Silicon Valley for a round‑table that broadened cooperation, including SK’s co‑development of AI infrastructure, Naver’s participation in Nvidia’s Nemotron Coalition, and exploration of joint ventures such as gigawatt‑scale AI cloud services and AI‑focused data centres.

President Lee Jae‑myung presented the “San Francisco AI Declaration” at the AI Summit held on 24 April, urging global firms to view Korea as an indispensable AI‑supply‑chain partner and announcing a nationwide AI investment programme of roughly 4,700 trillion won. At the summit Jensen Huang announced a US$5 trillion partnership with SK Group covering chip design and memory collaboration, and agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic.

On 24 July Hyundai Motor Group’s chairman visited Nvidia’s headquarters for a follow‑up to June talks in Seoul, confirming deeper cooperation on autonomous driving, robotics, AI‑driven manufacturing and data‑center infrastructure. Hyundai outlined a 9 trillion won, 112,400 m² “AI Valley” project in Saemangeum that will combine robotics, hydrogen, solar power and AI‑enabled factories, with Nvidia slated to supply the AI platforms and data‑center support.

Together these actions show a coordinated push by the South Korean government and its leading conglomerates to secure diversified AI chip supply, accelerate high‑bandwidth memory adoption, and embed AI across mobility, industry and cloud services.