Bae Kyung-hoon: “NVIDIA Cooperation to Continue Despite Jensen Huang’s Resignation... Reconfirms Supply of 260,000 GPUs”

[Financial News] Despite the resignation of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, AI cooperation projects between South Korea and NVIDIA will proceed as planned. NVIDIA has decided to maintain its plan to supply South Korea with 260,000 advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) and its plans to cooperate with domestic companies. The government, too, intends to proceed without disruption with its plan to secure 50,000 GPUs.
On the 13th, Bae Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, said on Facebook, “This morning, we held a meeting to review outstanding issues with NVIDIA, chaired by MSIT’s Second Vice Minister,” and added, “We reconfirmed that NVIDIA plans, at the company level, to proceed as previously announced with the supply of 260,000 advanced GPUs and cooperation with domestic companies.”
Bae said he had met with Jensen Huang at events including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Gyeongju, an AI ecosystem reception, and the San Francisco AI Declaration event, where they had discussed the development of Korea’s AI industry and ways to cooperate. He said, “Since the news of the resignation, several people have asked whether GPU supplies and cooperation projects would proceed as planned,” explaining the background to the meeting to review outstanding issues.
According to Bae, the two sides also agreed to continue the technical cooperation they had previously discussed. They will use NVIDIA’s high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink, to link domestic AI semiconductors with NVIDIA’s platform, and pursue the development of AI computing infrastructure, joint research in physical AI, and talent development. Discussions will also continue on holding NVIDIA’s annual developer event, GTC, in Korea.
The government’s plan to secure 50,000 GPUs is also proceeding as planned. Of the approximately 35,000 GPUs the government plans to secure directly, it has secured about 21,000 so far, while the remaining approximately 14,000 are expected to arrive by early 2027. All of these figures are calculated based on the computing capacity of NVIDIA B200 GPUs.
Separately, the government is securing the equivalent of 15,000 GPUs through the National AI Computing Center.
Bae emphasized, “The government will continue to work closely with companies and institutions at home and abroad and monitor GPU supply and demand in both the public and private sectors,” adding, “We will ensure that the GPUs we have secured can be used when needed for government initiatives such as AI research and development by companies, universities, and research institutions, the Proprietary AI Foundation Model, and MOAI.”
[email protected] Yoon Hong-jip Reporter