Nvidia, South Korea partner to deploy GPUs for AI infrastructure

Nvidia announced that South Korea’s government and major corporations will deploy over a quarter-million Nvidia GPUs to build national AI infrastructure.

The Ministry of Science and ICT, together with companies such as Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and NAVER Cloud, will use these GPUs for AI projects in cloud, manufacturing, and research sectors.

Samsung, SK Group, and Hyundai Motor Group are building AI factories with more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs each to support manufacturing, semiconductor research, and autonomous driving initiatives.

NAVER Cloud is expanding its AI infrastructure with over 60,000 GPUs for enterprise and physical AI workloads.

Research institutes and startups will be able to access this infrastructure for AI model development.

Nvidia is also collaborating with Korean firms on local language models and quantum computing research.

The project was announced as leaders gathered in South Korea for the APEC Summit.

🔗 Source: Nvidia

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

South Korea’s GPU plan leaves deployment and timing unclear

The 250,000+ GPU plan names an initial 50,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs (NVIDIA’s next-generation AI accelerators). It omits the mix or timing for the rest, so the ramp is unclear 1.
SK Group’s AI factory finishes phase one in late 2027 2.
Hyundai tests NVIDIA Omniverse (a 3D simulation and digital-twin collaboration platform). It runs NVIDIA Cosmos (a platform for large-scale physical simulation) on NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs, with validation, not broad production 3.
The Ministry of Science and ICT will first allocate 13,000 units through NAVER Cloud, NHN Cloud, and Kakao. That is 5% of the total, so rollout is phased 1.

Vendors can win deals by easing power and cooling

Strain from a 250,000 GPU rollout creates work for Vertiv (data center infrastructure), CoolIT Systems (liquid cooling), Global Standard Technology (Korean cooling equipment) at LG Uplus (telecom and data center operator) 4.
LG Electronics and SK Innovation are building cooling and energy management systems. They supply cold plates, Coolant Distribution Units (CDUs), and AI-driven Data Center Management Systems 5.
Vendors with Direct Current (DC) grids plus Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems meet energy stability needs. LG Energy Solution (a battery and energy storage company) keeps high-density workloads online 6.
FuelCell Energy and Inuverse signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore up to 100 megawatts (MW) of fuel cells, with phases starting in 2027. It targets clean power for microgrids (localized power systems that can operate independently) without downtime 7.