South Korea receives 13,000 Nvidia GPUs worth $953m

South Korea has received its first shipment of Nvidia GPUs as part of Nvidia’s plan, in partnership with the government and major companies, to expand AI infrastructure.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said 13,000 GPUs were purchased with a budget of 1.4 trillion won (US$952.7 million).

The shipment includes several Nvidia models, such as the B200.

These GPUs will be distributed to universities, research institutes, startups, and public-sector organizations.

The initiative is part of a broader plan, announced by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in October, to deploy 260,000 GPUs to South Korea with the aim of building large-scale AI factories.

The government will use 50,000 GPUs for a national sovereign AI platform, while Samsung Electronics, SK Group, and Hyundai Motor Group will each receive 50,000 units, and Naver will receive 60,000.

🔗 Source: Yonhap

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Grid and cooling will set the pace for South Korea’s AI factories

In September 2025, the National Information Resources Service, South Korea’s government data center operator, had a fire. Lithium‑ion batteries past their 10‑year life burned for 22 hours, froze 647 government services, and drew 170 firefighters 1.
The outage exposed a lack of backup systems plus redundancy (duplicate systems designed to keep services running). The state promised 3‑hour recovery yet took days to restore only 62 of 647 services 1.
Running 260,000 GPUs needs heavy power and cooling 1. The blaze made clear how a single centralized site can take everything offline 1.
If grid supply and cooling reliability lag, especially for high‑density GPU clusters, new hardware could sit idle 2.

Vendors that fix data center gaps can win Korea’s AI work

Suppliers of liquid cooling (coolant‑based heat removal), power distribution, and battery safety/monitoring gear can move first as Korea hardens data center resilience after the fire 1.
The 2026 budget lifts research and development (R&D) by 19% and raises industry/SME/energy support by 15% 3. A KRW 100 trillion National Growth Fund via public–private financing backs advanced industries, including AI infrastructure through tax credits, relaxed regulation, and power‑supply support 3.
Networking and system integration vendors can bid for redundancy upgrades. Engineers use N+1 (one backup unit), 2N (full duplication), and 2N+1 (full duplication plus a spare) 1. President Lee announced a goal of dual‑system architecture with mirrored systems across separate sites after centralized designs failed 1.
Foreign firms should watch the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) (MSIT) and the AI Policy Center for implementation guidance, as the AI Framework Act’s Enforcement Decrees (implementation regulations) are due by end‑2025 and the law takes effect in January 2026 4.