NVIDIA without Jensen Huang… Maintaining promise to supply 260,000 GPUs to Korea

Bae Gyeong-hoon "Reconfirmed existing cooperation plan with NVIDIA"

Joint research on physical AI and promotion of holding GTC in Korea continue

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kwon Ha-young = Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning Bae Kyung-hoon announced on the 13th that despite the sudden resignation of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Hwang, NVIDIA plans to supply 260,000 advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) to Korea and proceed with existing cooperation projects as scheduled.

Deputy Prime Minister Bae said this in a Facebook post titled 'Jensen Huang's resignation, but cooperation continues', saying, "This morning, we held a meeting to review pending issues with NVIDIA presided over by the Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT."

After NVIDIA announced the resignation of CEO Hwang and the appointment of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Colette Kress as interim CEO on the 12th (local time), interest in the impact on the GPU supply and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure cooperation project being pursued with NVIDIA in Korea has increased.

Deputy Prime Minister Bae explained that the government's plan to secure 50,000 GPUs is also progressing as planned.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Bae, of the approximately 35,000 Nvidia B200 GPUs that the government will directly secure, about 21,000 have been secured so far, and the remaining approximately 14,000 are scheduled to be delivered by early 2027. Separately, 15,000 copies are being secured through the National AI Computing Center.

Deputy Prime Minister Bae said, "The government will closely cooperate with domestic and foreign companies and institutions and continue to check the supply and demand of GPUs in the public and private sectors. We will ensure that the secured GPUs can be used when necessary for government projects such as AI research and development by companies, universities, and research institutes, independent AI foundation models, and everyone's AI."

He emphasized that in addition to GPU supply, the two sides decided to continue to pursue major technological and industrial cooperation projects that have been discussed.

Specifically, it included linkage between domestic AI semiconductors and NVIDIA platforms using NVLink, NVIDIA's high-speed connection technology, establishment of AI computing infrastructure, joint physical AI research and talent training, and promotion of hosting 'GTC', NVIDIA's developer event, in Korea.

Deputy Prime Minister Bae also expressed his personal regret over CEO Hwang's resignation, adding, "I am grateful for his interest in Korea's AI capabilities and for helping our government and companies grow in the AI ​​market."