NVIDIA Keeps 260,000-GPU Korea Pledge After Jensen Huang Exit

Reuters reported that the commitment stands despite Huang's exit, and that Bae said NVIDIA and Korea will keep working on joint projects. These include linking Korean-made AI chips to NVIDIA's platform, building AI computing infrastructure, and joint research and talent development in physical AI. Seoul Economic Daily, which read Bae's Facebook post, said the ministry's second vice minister chaired a review meeting with NVIDIA on the morning of Nov. 13 and that both sides agreed to push ahead with existing projects, including the GPU supply, without disruption. Reuters and Korea JoongAng Daily describe the post as an X post and a Facebook post respectively.

NVIDIA announced Huang's resignation on Nov. 12, as Voltgrid reported, with CFO Colette Kress named interim CEO. The Nov. 13 statement is Seoul's answer to that exit. It follows the vice science minister's Nov. 9 testimony that 10,000 NVIDIA GPUs were in use and contracted deliveries were on track, which we covered while the board's probe into Huang was still open.

Why NVIDIA's Korea GPU Pledge Matters for AI Capacity

The 260,000 GPUs are the base of Korea's planned AI compute build-out. Korea JoongAng Daily said the government and major groups, including Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group and Naver Cloud, are each to set up AI computing centers powered by NVIDIA's Blackwell GPUs. Every one of those sites needs power, cooling and grid connections sized for the hardware, so a supply pause would have left committed racks and utility connections waiting for chips. A confirmed schedule keeps those timelines intact, at least on paper.

The statement came from the Korean government. Neither Reuters nor the other reports we read carry a new NVIDIA statement on the Korea commitments since the resignation.

Korea's Government GPU Tally

Seoul Economic Daily gave the state's own tally. The government plans to secure 50,000 GPUs, and Bae said that plan is on track. Of the roughly 35,000 GPUs the government buys directly, about 21,000 have been secured, which is 60% of that volume by our arithmetic. The remaining 14,000 or so are due by early 2027. A separate batch of about 15,000 is being secured through the National AI Computing Center. The newspaper said the figures are converted into the computing performance of NVIDIA's B200 GPU, so they are not a count of physical boards.

Bae also said Seoul will keep monitoring GPU supply and demand in the public and private sectors, and that efforts to bring NVIDIA's GTC developer conference to Korea continue.

What is not confirmed yet

The ministry has not published a full statement beyond Bae's post, and NVIDIA has not confirmed the terms in its own words in the reports we read. Reuters says the pledge was agreed last year at the APEC meetings, and no delivery schedule for the four conglomerates' share has been made public. Whether a new CEO changes procurement priorities is unknown: NVIDIA's search for a permanent chief executive is open, and the company has said it will report third-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Nov. 17, its first since Huang left.