Computing infrastructure buildout accelerates as two sides discuss physical AI cooperation and Nvidia R&D center

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holds up a GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card at Portal PC bang in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on Sunday. [Yonhap]
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holds up a GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card at Portal PC bang in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on Sunday. [Yonhap]

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to urge the smooth delivery of 260,000 graphics processing units and push for the introduction of an AI factory within the year.

The two met Monday on the sidelines of the "Nvidia Korea AI Ecosystem" reception at the Shilla Hotel in Jung-gu, where they discussed plans to build out Nvidia's computing infrastructure in South Korea and foster growth of the domestic physical AI ecosystem.

Bae pressed Huang on commitments made at last year's APEC summit, particularly the delivery of 260,000 GPUs and the deployment of an AI factory based on Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture. An AI factory is a specialized computing infrastructure that bundles GPUs and networking hardware to manage the full cycle of AI development — from data collection and training through to inference. Bae called for the 260,000 GPUs pledged at APEC to arrive without delay and asked Huang to cooperate in ensuring the Vera Rubin NVL72-based AI factory is introduced before the end of the year.

Bae and Huang also explored ways for Nvidia — which holds a physical AI full stack — to collaborate with South Korean industry, academia and research institutions to help the domestic physical AI ecosystem grow, along with government support measures to facilitate that cooperation.

Both sides expressed hope that Nvidia would establish a research and development center in South Korea as soon as possible, with the expectation that it would serve as a hub for physical AI research collaboration across industry, academia and research institutions.

"If we strategically partner with Nvidia on the strength of our world-class semiconductor and manufacturing capabilities and our potential in AI, we can create success stories across a wide range of industries," Bae said. "I hope today's reception becomes a springboard for South Korea's AI capabilities — including physical AI, the next generation of AI — to take a significant leap forward."


ko@heraldcorp.com