Ahead of AI Summit, Jensen Huang Meets SK Chairman, Focusing on Next-Gen Memory and AI Factory Collaboration

SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won met with NVIDIA (NVDA-US) CEO Jensen Huang ahead of the U.S. AI Summit, engaging in in-depth discussions on cooperation in next-generation memory development and AI infrastructure investment, reaffirming their long-term partnership and further solidifying their deep integration within the AI supply chain.

On July 24 local time, the two held a dinner in California. SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung, along with senior executives from SK Telecom and NVIDIA, attended the event. NVIDIA stated the meeting was intended to commemorate the long-standing partnership and advance the AI cooperation agenda agreed upon during Huang’s visit to South Korea in June.

For the market, this high-level interaction reaffirms SK Hynix’s stable position as a core HBM supplier for NVIDIA’s AI chips, further strengthening investor expectations that SK-affiliated companies will continue to benefit from the AI supply chain.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA will use the upcoming AI Summit in San Francisco to further promote AI ecosystem collaboration with the South Korean government, companies, and research institutions. NVIDIA said South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, along with major business leaders and researchers, will join NVIDIA and its ecosystem partners to discuss the future direction of South Korea’s AI industry.

According to South Korea’s《Today Economy》, this meeting continues and concretizes the cooperation discussions from Huang’s June visit to Korea. Currently, the two companies are advancing collaboration across three areas—AI infrastructure, personal AI, and embodied AI—centered on NVIDIA’s AI platform.

SK Hynix will jointly develop next-generation memory products aligned with NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure roadmap. As generative AI models grow in scale, high-performance HBM and other advanced memory have become critical bottlenecks in AI servers. As NVIDIA’s core HBM supplier, SK Hynix is well-positioned to benefit from the expanding AI computing demand.

SK Telecom, meanwhile, is collaborating with NVIDIA to build infrastructure for embodied AI and robotics technologies, and plans to construct an AI factory in South Korea, aiming for full operation by next year.

Additionally, NVIDIA and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced the establishment of South Korea’s first AI research center jointly founded by a local university and a global tech company. The center will be located at KAIST’s Kim Jae-chul Graduate School of AI, focusing on innovation in agent-based AI technologies.

According to NVIDIA, the collaboration will combine its end-to-end AI capabilities, Nemotron open-source models, and computing resources from NVIDIA AI cloud partners with KAIST’s top-tier research teams to build a talent and technology system for future AI research.

Notably, Madison Huang, NVIDIA’s Senior Director of Omniverse and Robotics Product Marketing and daughter of Jensen Huang, also attended the dinner, further highlighting the depth of the partnership.

Choi Tae-won’s trip to the U.S. is part of a broader visit by South Korea’s tech leadership. Alongside Choi, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun, and Naver founder Lee Hae-jin are also scheduled to hold a series of meetings with global tech leaders in Silicon Valley, forming a rare collective industrial diplomacy effort by South Korean business leaders.

During the AI Summit, Huang will also meet with President Lee Jae-myung and engage with global AI leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Broadcom’s CEO. The summit is seen as a key milestone for South Korea’s push for international AI cooperation.

President Lee is expected to attend the AI Summit and dinner he will host, meeting with top executives from global AI companies. The South Korean government aims to strengthen partnerships with global AI firms and accelerate the development of its domestic AI ecosystem through this event.

This joint visit by South Korea’s political and business leaders reflects Seoul’s accelerating efforts to elevate its AI strategic posture. Amid intensifying global competition in AI infrastructure, Korean firms like SK, Samsung, and Hyundai are deepening ties with U.S. tech giants like NVIDIA to secure a stronger position in the next phase of the AI supply chain race.