On the eve of the AI Summit, Jensen Huang meets with SK Chairman to discuss next-generation AI memory and AI factory collaboration

On the eve of the US AI Summit, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won met again with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. The two sides had an in-depth exchange regarding next-generation memory development and AI infrastructure investment, reaffirming their long-term partnership and further strengthening the deep connection between the two companies within the AI supply chain.

On July 24 local time, the two sides held a dinner in Woodside, California, USA. SK hynix CEO Kwak No-jung, several senior executives from SK Telecom, and representatives from NVIDIA attended. NVIDIA stated that the purpose of the meeting was to commemorate both parties’ long-term partnership and to further advance the AI cooperation topics reached during Jensen Huang’s visit to Korea in June this year.

For the market, this high-level interaction once again sends a strong signal of SK hynix’s position as NVIDIA’s core HBM supplier for AI chips, further consolidating investors’ expectations that SK-affiliated companies will continue to benefit from the AI industrial chain in the long run.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA will further promote AI ecosystem cooperation with the Korean government, enterprises, and research institutions at the San Francisco AI Summit. NVIDIA said that Korean President Lee Jae-myung, as well as major Korean entrepreneurs and researchers, will join NVIDIA and ecosystem partners to discuss the direction of Korea’s AI industry development.

SK and NVIDIA Deepen Cooperation Framework

According to Korean media outlet Financial Today, this meeting is a continuation and concrete implementation of the cooperation discussed during Jensen Huang’s visit to Korea in June. Currently, the two companies are cooperating around NVIDIA’s AI platform in three main areas: AI infrastructure, Personal AI, and Physical AI.

SK hynix will develop next-generation memory products together with NVIDIA based on the latter’s AI infrastructure development roadmap. With generative AI models expanding in scale, advanced memory such as high-performance HBM has become a key bottleneck for AI servers. As NVIDIA’s core HBM supplier, SK hynix is well-positioned to continue benefiting from the growth in AI computing power.

SK Telecom is collaborating with NVIDIA to advance the infrastructure for Physical AI and robotics technologies, and plans to build an AI factory in Korea, with the goal of beginning operations next year.

Additionally, NVIDIA and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced the establishment of Korea’s first AI research center jointly founded by a Korean university and a global technology company. The center will be located at KAIST’s Graduate School of AI (headed by Kim Jae-chul), focusing on the innovative development of Korea’s Agentic AI technologies.

According to NVIDIA, this collaboration will combine NVIDIA’s full-stack AI technology capabilities, the Nemotron open-source model, and computing resources provided by NVIDIA AI cloud partners, working together with KAIST’s top research teams to build talent and technology systems for future AI research.

It is also worth noting that Madison Huang (Jensen Huang’s eldest daughter), Senior Director of Omniverse and Robotics Product Marketing at NVIDIA, attended the dinner, highlighting the deep foundation of partnership between the two sides.

Korean Tech Leaders Gather in Silicon Valley, Accelerating AI Strategy

Chey Tae-won’s visit to the US is an important part of the collective visit to the US by Korea’s technology industry leaders.

Besides Chey Tae-won, other Korean tech leaders including Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun, and Naver founder Lee Hae-jin will also hold a series of meetings in Silicon Valley with the heads of global technology companies. This forms a rare collective industrial diplomacy effort by Korean business circles in recent years.

During the AI summit, Jensen Huang will also hold talks with Korean President Lee Jae-myung, and engage with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Broadcom’s CEO and other core figures in the global AI industry. The summit is regarded externally as an important milestone for the Korean government to promote international AI cooperation.

According to Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo, President Lee Jae-myung will attend the AI summit and dinner he will host, and meet with key global AI industry leaders. The Korean government hopes that through this event, it can strengthen cooperative relations with global AI enterprises and promote the development of Korea’s domestic AI ecosystem.

This joint delegation by the Korean government and business sectors to the US reflects Seoul’s accelerated efforts to enhance its AI strategic position. Against the backdrop of intensifying global AI infrastructure competition, Korean companies such as SK, Samsung, and Hyundai are deepening cooperation with American technology giants like NVIDIA in order to gain a more advantageous position in the next round of the AI industrial chain race.