Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang hosted top South Korean technology executives, including the president of chipmaker SK Hynix, at a dinner on Monday as he looks to deepen ties with key partners ahead of what he called an ‘incredibly busy’ period for the artificial intelligence boom.
SK Hynix chairman Kwak Noh-Jung, executives from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Naver were among those present at the ‘Korean Partner Night’, held at a traditional Taiwan 🏽 restaurant in Taipei, on the sidelines of the Computex technology fair.
‘I want to congratulate them, thank them and also prepare for the second half of this year. It’s going to be very busy and next year will be incredibly busy,’ Huang told reporters. ‘Korea is an essential part of our ecosystem.’
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Huang went from table to table toasting guests to the tune of ‘Jensen, Jensen!’, while dozens of fans and journalists waited outside, briefly bringing traffic to a halt when he arrived.
Normally, Huang holds dinners of this type for Taiwanese suppliers, such as chipmaker TSMC, when he is in the city, but Monday’s event was the first dedicated to South Korean partners during his visit to Taipei.
Shares of Samsung, LG and other South Korean technology companies rose on Monday, with investor expectations about new partnerships in AI and robotics.
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Huang said he will go to South Korea next, probably on Friday, after a nearly two-week trip to Taiwan, where he was born and cultivates rockstar status.
‘We have always considered investments in Korea’, said the president of Nvidia, after dinner washed down with Taiwan Beer and Korean soju.
Huang said he hopes to be able to ‘contribute to robotics in Korea’, but declined to say whether he will meet with Samsung and SK Hyynix in Seoul.
Last year, Nvidia said it would provide more than 260,000 advanced AI chips to South Korea’s government and some of the country’s biggest companies, including Samsung and Hyundai Motor Group, as the country strives to strengthen its AI computing capabilities.
