Nvidia teams up with Samsung, Hyundai, SK, and Naver to build Physical AI future

Nvidia just pulled off one of its biggest global plays yet — and it didn’t happen in Silicon Valley.

CEO Jensen Huang landed in South Korea for the first time in fifteen years, not for a keynote or a launch event, but to seal partnerships that could redefine how AI touches the physical world.

At the APEC Summit 2025, Nvidia announced deep collaborations with four of South Korea’s tech powerhouses — Hyundai Motor, Samsung, SK Group, and Naver — alongside the South Korean government. Their goal? Build a new era of Physical AI — the kind that doesn’t just run in the cloud but moves machines, builds chips, and drives cars.

South Korea plans to deploy over 260,000 of Nvidia’s latest GPUs. About 50,000 of them will power national AI initiatives like a domestic AI foundation model and a public AI data center, while the rest will fuel Samsung’s manufacturing intelligence, Hyundai’s mobility platforms, and SK’s new industrial cloud.

APEC 2025 Official Page | Nvidia Physical AI

Samsung is taking the boldest leap — building an AI Megafactory with Nvidia, powered by over 50,000 GPUs and Nvidia’s Omniverse platform. This factory won’t just optimize production — it will think, predict, and adapt in real time across its semiconductor and robotics lines.

In parallel, Hyundai and Nvidia are building an AI infrastructure for autonomous mobility and smart manufacturing. The company plans to use Blackwell GPUs for full-stack AI training — from simulation to deployment. Hyundai calls it the foundation of “physical AI mobility,” where intelligent systems don’t just assist humans — they collaborate with them.

Meanwhile, SK Group is launching Asia’s first industrial AI cloud, designed to support governments, startups, and enterprises building digital twins and industrial simulations on top of Nvidia platforms.

And Naver Cloud, Korea’s equivalent of Google Cloud, is partnering with Nvidia to develop a Physical AI platform connecting digital systems to real-world industries like shipbuilding, energy, and biotech.

As Naver’s founder Hae-jin Lee said:

“The era of Physical AI — where intelligence operates directly within real industrial systems — is unfolding.”

Behind these announcements is a much larger message: AI’s center of gravity is shifting.

The world’s focus has been on generative AI and chatbots. But what Nvidia is building with South Korea is something deeper — a framework where AI isn’t just language-based but action-based. It’s not about answers; it’s about automation.

This alliance isn’t just a tech deal. It’s a global strategy — one where AI meets infrastructure, and innovation meets industry.

If OpenAI is building the mind of AI, Nvidia is quietly building its body.

And South Korea just became its strongest muscle.

Samsung x Nvidia AI Megafactory
Hyundai AI Factory Partnership

Because the future of AI won’t just be coded — it’ll be constructed.
And it’s being built right now, one GPU at a time.