Episode summary
Special Edition: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Investing in South Korea | Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence
· · 15 min · Hosts: Ed Ludlow, Paul Sweeney · Guests: Jensen Huang
Summary
Jensen Huang said Nvidia’s push into South Korea reflects a broader AI supply-chain strategy, not just a single-country bet. He called it “the golden ages for Korea,” pointing to booming semiconductor and industrial businesses, and said Korea can help the world build AI infrastructure. He highlighted two major announcements: a partnership with SK Group that he said would involve more than $500 billion of business over time, and a $1 billion investment in Naver to help scale Korea’s leading AI cloud operation.
Huang framed the deal around Nvidia’s need for more memory, land, power, and construction capacity as AI demand expands. He said the company is constrained across the supply chain and expects the industry to double annually, but not much faster because physical infrastructure is hard to scale. He also described an extended roadmap with Korean memory makers through HBM 2, 3E, 4E and beyond, and argued that the semiconductor industry may need to become 10 times larger over the next decade.
Beyond Korea, Huang defended open models as essential for safety, security, innovation, and sovereignty, while also saying closed models will remain important. He argued that China and the U.S. will both keep advancing AI, and that Korea’s role is to help build the infrastructure for the next phase of “computers for computers to use.”
Key takeaways
- Huang said Nvidia and SK Group will do over $500 billion of business, including memory purchases and AI supercomputer sales.
- He said Nvidia is investing $1 billion in Naver to help Korea’s leading AI cloud scale to 200 megawatts.
- Huang said Nvidia remains constrained by HBM, LPDDR, land, power, and construction capacity, limiting growth to roughly doubling a year.
- He expects the semiconductor industry to be about 10 times larger over the next decade as AI agents and robots increase compute demand.
- Huang argued open models are essential for safety, cybersecurity, innovation, and sovereignty, even though closed models will remain useful.
Notable quotes
“This is the golden ages for Korea. As you know, their semiconductor business is booming. their industrial business is booming”
“We're announcing several things. we announced um a big partnership uh with uh SK group where our companies are going to uh enter into a business partnership”
“we're investing a billion dollars in Naver to help. They're the they're the uh Korea's uh leading AI cloud”
“we're constrained in in HBM memories, uh LPDDR memories. We're constrained in just about every part of the supply chain”
“open models is essential for safety. Open models is essential for security, for cyber security. Open models are essential for innovation”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. I'm Monica Ricks in the Bloomberg newsroom in New York with a special conversation. Bloomberg tech host Ed Ledllo sat down with Nvidia CEO Jensen Hang to discuss the tech giant's latest investments in South Korea, which includes teaming up with SK Group to build new data centers and investing a billion dollars in internet and cloud service provider Naver.
Let's listen into a portion of their conversation coming not long after the NVIDIA CEO appeared at a Korean AI summit.
Jensen, I think we just start with the basics like Korea is incredibly important to to the AI buildout globally. We'll get into high bandwidth memory, but just from this summit uh from the president being here, what is the takeaway? What is it you're trying to achieve?
Well, we're announcing a whole bunch of partnerships with them. This is the golden ages for Korea. As you know, their semiconductor business is booming.
their industrial business is booming. You know, this is a country that has the ability to help the world build out the AI infrastructure that they're incredibly adapt at uh adopting new technologies and is a really technologically uh forwardlaning society and they they love using AI that AI has has really diffused throughout their their society and and their industry and so so this is a a great time for them. We're announcing several things.
we announced um a big partnership uh with uh SK group where our companies are going to uh enter into a business partnership where uh we do over $500 billion dollars of business with each other um whether it's consum consumption of and purchasing of memories uh or uh selling AI supercomputers to them as they scale out 2 gawatts of AI factories.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai data centers
- south korea investment
- semiconductors demand
- ai infrastructure
- ai capex
Companies and tickers mentioned
- NVDA
- Nvidia
- SK Group
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from Bloomberg Intelligence
-
Anthropic’s IPO Is Said to Be About Six Times Oversubscribed | Bloomberg Intelligence -
Instant Reaction: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Ousted by Nvidia Board | Bloomberg Intelligence -
Nvidia’s Huang Ousted by Board in Move That Roils AI Economy | Bloomberg Intelligence -
CoreWeave Shares Soar After AI Computing Firm Eases Debt Fears | Bloomberg Intelligence -
Anthropic Targets $1.4 Trillion Valuation in Blockbuster IPO | Bloomberg Intelligence -
Nvidia Probe Into CEO Affair Raises Thorny Questions for AI | Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence, this episode and its artwork belong to Bloomberg. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
