Nvidia's South Korea Blitz: Every AI Partnership Announced During Jensen Huang's Visit

Jensen Huang's trip to Seoul in early June 2026 was not a victory lap—it was a supply-chain lock-in and an infrastructure handshake that redefined Nvidia's relationship with South Korea. Over several days of meetings, the Nvidia CEO moved the partnership beyond a simple buyer-supplier dynamic into a "multiyear, multiplatform, multitechnology" alliance spanning memory, cloud, and sovereign AI . Here is exactly what was announced, what it means, and where the evidence stops.

SK Hynix: The Multi-Year Memory Anchor

The most consequential announcement was a formal, multi-year technology partnership with SK Hynix. This was not a routine purchase order. The agreement explicitly covers co-development of next-generation memory—HBM4 in particular—and locks supply to Nvidia's roadmap for years to come .

Speaking after meeting SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Huang called SK Hynix Nvidia's "largest memory partner" and said the company would continue in that role . He confirmed that Nvidia already buys "billions and billions of dollars" worth of products from SK Hynix annually .

The partnership is built around several concrete pillars:

• HBM4 and Vera Rubin: The deal directly targets HBM4 memory for the upcoming Vera Rubin accelerator platform. SK Hynix is estimated to hold 60-70% of HBM4 volume for Vera Rubin, giving it a commanding lead over Samsung and Micron . Huang separately confirmed that Nvidia's new Vera processor uses DRAM from SK Hynix .
• Four hardware platforms: SK Hynix is now Nvidia's primary memory partner for four upcoming platforms: data-center accelerators (Vera Rubin), Vera CPUs, RTX Spark AI PCs, and Jetson Thor robotics chips .
• Design plus manufacturing: The agreement covers joint chip design as well as fabrication, not just supply .
• Factory digital twins: Beyond silicon, SK Hynix will use Nvidia's Omniverse software stack to build digital twins of its own HBM4 fabs, integrating AI simulation directly into its manufacturing process .
• Supply security: For Nvidia, the deal locks in multi-year supply visibility for the most bottleneck-prone component in AI systems. For SK Hynix, it guarantees structural demand growth across the entire AI infrastructure buildout cycle .

One detail that surfaced later: SK Hynix has placed a 44.2 billion won capital expenditure to scale HBM4 production specifically for Nvidia's next architecture . No total dollar value for the partnership was disclosed by either company .

SK Telecom: A Gigawatt-Scale AI Cloud

The SK Group relationship expanded beyond memory into full-stack AI cloud services. SK Telecom announced plans to build a gigawatt-scale AI Cloud in South Korea using Nvidia's DSX (AI Factory) reference architecture, with the first AI factory planned to come online in 2027 .

This is not a pilot project. A gigawatt-scale deployment would make it one of Asia's largest planned AI infrastructure investments . The AI cloud is designed to support training, inference, and agentic workloads for AI startups, robotics, and industrial physical AI across South Korea, with eventual expansion into broader Asian markets .

Crucially, the deal represents a deliberate broadening of the SK-Nvidia relationship. Where previous cooperation centered on SK Hynix supplying HBM, the new partnership extends into data center construction and operation, pulling SK Telecom's network and real estate assets directly into Nvidia's infrastructure roadmap .

Naver: Sovereign AI at Gigawatt Scale

Naver, South Korea's internet giant, signed a strategic alliance with Nvidia to build full-stack AI factories at gigawatt scale—explicitly framed around sovereign AI .

Naver described the partnership as spanning the "entire value chain," from exploring global demand to capital cooperation and joint responsibility for outcomes . The company is not just buying GPUs; it is building a complete AI factory platform using Nvidia DSX, integrating chips, servers, networking, and software .

The buildout starts at 55 megawatts at the GAK Sejong data center and scales toward gigawatt capacity . Naver's goal, as stated by its executives, is to become a "global AI factory" serving enterprises and governments that want to run AI workloads on domestic infrastructure using domestic data .

Huang himself named Naver Cloud a key partner in global AI infrastructure during GTC Taipei 2026 earlier that month, and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin attended the Seoul meetings in person—signaling the alliance's strategic weight .

Doosan, LG, and Hyundai: Industrial and Robotics Expansion

Beyond the headline deals, Huang's meetings extended Nvidia's reach into Korean industrial conglomerates:

• Doosan Group: A partnership was announced to expand AI data center infrastructure, though sourcing on concrete project details is thin. The available reports confirm the deal as part of Nvidia's broader push to embed its AI platform across Korean industry .
• LG Group: Huang met with LG executives to expand collaboration on physical AI, agentic AI, and robotics. The partnership aims to integrate Nvidia's AI platform into LG's robotics and industrial automation businesses .
• Hyundai Motor Group: Huang held a working dinner with Hyundai's executive chair, discussing physical AI and robotics. Hyundai is integrating Nvidia's AI and robotics platforms into its manufacturing and future mobility roadmaps, with a focus on embodied intelligence .

What the Sources Do Not Say: Market Reaction

Multiple sources detail the partnership announcements extensively, but none report same-day U.S. stock market data for Nvidia shares or the Nasdaq 100 in response to the news. The announcements were made on Monday, June 8, 2026, in Seoul—which would have fallen during U.S. pre-market or early trading hours. Without specific trading data in the available evidence, any claim about how the market reacted would be speculation. A definitive answer would require checking U.S. market closing prices for that session.

The Bigger Picture

Taken together, the deals mark a structural shift. Nvidia is no longer simply buying memory from South Korea; it is co-designing chips, co-building data centers, and co-developing sovereign AI factories with Korean partners. As Huang reportedly told the press in Seoul, "The build-out of AI infrastructure is only just beginning" . The agreements signed during this visit are designed to shape the rest of that buildout.