NVIDIA has announced that it is working with South Korea to expand the nation’s AI infrastructure with over a quarter-million NVIDIA GPUs across its sovereign clouds and AI factories. Built with public and private-sector deployments, the infrastructure aims to form the foundation for AI-enabled economic growth and innovation across South Korea’s industries, including automotive, manufacturing and telecommunications.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the APEC Summit. In a press release, NVIDIA shared that the South Korean government, through the Ministry of Science and ICT, is investing in sovereign AI infrastructure with over 50,000 of the latest NVIDIA GPUs to be deployed across the National AI Computing Center and Korean cloud service and IT providers NHN Cloud, Kakao Corp. and NAVER Cloud.
“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,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “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.”
“Now that AI has gone beyond mere innovation and become the foundation of future industries, South Korea stands at the threshold of transformation,” said Bae Kyung-hoon, Korea Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Science and Information and Communication Technologies. “Expanding our national AI infrastructure and developing technologies with NVIDIA is an investment that will further reinforce South Korea’s strengths, including its manufacturing capabilities. This will support South Korea’s prosperity as it strives to become one of the top three global AI powerhouses.”
The AI infrastructure deployment will grow over the next several years from an initial deployment of 13,000 NVIDIA Blackwell and other GPUs by NVIDIA Cloud Partner NAVER Cloud, together with NHN Cloud and Kakao Corp., to expand computing infrastructure on the nation’s sovereign clouds through initiatives such as the establishment of Korea’s National AI Computing Center.
Research institutes, startups and AI companies will be able to use the sovereign infrastructure to build models and applications, supporting Korea’s national strategy to boost AI capabilities and infrastructure.
In addition, NVIDIA is working with industries, academia and research institutions in Korea on AI-RAN and 6G infrastructure. NVIDIA is collaborating with Samsung, SK Telecom, ETRI, KT, LGU+ and Yonsei University to develop intelligent, low-power AI-RAN network technology that can reduce computing costs and extend device battery life by offloading GPU computation tasks to the network’s base station.
Samsung is building a semiconductor AI factory with over 50,000 GPUs to advance intelligent manufacturing and bring AI to its products and services. Meanwhile, SK Group is designing an AI factory that can host over 50,000 NVIDIA GPUs to advance semiconductor research, development and production, as well as cloud infrastructure to support digital twin and AI agent development. SK Telecom plans to provide sovereign infrastructure featuring NVIDIA’s latest GPUs, and will offer industrial cloud infrastructure to accelerate digital twin and robotics projects for startups, enterprises and government agencies.
Hyundai Motor Group and NVIDIA will co-develop AI capabilities across mobility, smart factories and on-device semiconductors, powered by 50,000 Blackwell GPUs for AI model training and deployment. In support of the Korean government’s initiative to build a national physical AI cluster, Hyundai Motor Group and NVIDIA will work closely with government stakeholders to accelerate ecosystem development. This will result in an approximately $3 billion investment to advance the physical AI landscape in Korea. Key initiatives include the creation of an NVIDIA AI Technology Center, Hyundai Motor Group Physical AI Application Center and regional AI data centers.
NAVER Cloud is also expanding its NVIDIA AI infrastructure and plans to deploy over 60,000 GPUs for sovereign and physical AI. NAVER Cloud is preparing for the next stage of sovereign AI development in Korea, powered by NVIDIA Nemotron open models running on its NVIDIA AI infrastructure. NAVER Cloud plans to develop industry-specific AI models like shipbuilding and security, with a focus on inclusive AI for Korea’s citizens.