NVIDIA announced South Korea deals with SK Hynix, SK Telecom, Naver, Doosan Group and LG Group on Monday to support its AI chip and data centre expansion.
The agreements came during Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang’s visit to South Korea. NVIDIA and its partners did not disclose the value of the deals.
SK Group said SK Hynix signed a multi-year technology partnership with Nvidia to develop advanced memory for global AI data centres.
Huang said SK Hynix would remain Nvidia’s largest memory partner. He said Nvidia already buys “billions and billions of dollars” from SK Hynix each year and expects purchases to grow.
The agreement comes as memory chip makers work to meet demand for AI-related products. SK Hynix and Nvidia said the deal would help ensure supply keeps pace with Nvidia’s plans for robotics, personal computers and AI supercomputers.
SK Telecom said it would build a gigawatt-scale AI cloud in South Korea using Nvidia technology. Its first AI data centre is expected to come online in 2027.
NVIDIA said Naver and Doosan would also use its technology to help build AI data centres. Doosan said it expects its energy solution to be used in Nvidia data centre platforms.
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Huang also said Nvidia is partnering with LG Group on electronics, mechanical systems and AI for humanoid robots. He said the companies are also working on future data centre architecture, including cooling and power delivery.
The announcements came as South Korea’s technology stocks fell sharply. The Kospi index dropped almost 9% on Monday after US jobs data raised bets on a possible Federal Reserve rate hike.
Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both fell more than 10% in early trading before trimming losses. Samsung later traded down 4.6%, while SK Hynix was down 0.6%.
