Jensen Huang's Gift: 'AI Factory' — Opportunity or Dependency?

[Anchor]

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has concluded his whirlwind visit to South Korea. In his meetings with domestic companies, the surprise gift Huang unveiled was cooperation on "AI factories" and "physical AI."

Reporter Jeong Seong-jin has the story.

[Reporter]

From SK, LG, and Hyundai Motor to Naver.

Jensen Huang visited major domestic companies one after another starting early in the morning to build an "AI alliance."

The gift package he had teased was the "AI factory."

[Jensen Huang/Nvidia CEO: Building AI factories is very important. If it's profitable, everyone will want more AI factories.]

An AI factory is a next-generation AI data center capable of everything from data collection and large-scale AI model training and inference to the final creation of customized AI.

This requires semiconductors capable of processing massive amounts of power and data, as well as manufacturing sectors such as robotics and mobility that can utilize AI models.

Over the past four days, Huang specifically targeted and visited locations connected to these AI factories.

[Jensen Huang/Nvidia CEO: From robotics to the AI factories of the future, we are working together as one giant team.]

The goal is to have these AI factories operational by next year. The domestic companies joining the Nvidia coalition will handle key pillars of the AI infrastructure business, including memory, communication networks, cloud services, and data center operations.

This provides an opportunity to go beyond being mere component suppliers and instead design a new infrastructure market.

However, some analysts suggest that Huang secured the bigger prize for himself.

[Choi Byung-ho/Research Professor at Korea University's Human-Inspired AI Institute: (Nvidia) is looking to solidify its monopoly and completely dominate next-generation services. In that sense, Korea is a very advantageous partner. That is likely why he rushed here.]

There are also significant concerns that companies could become locked into Nvidia's ecosystem, extending from hardware to software and development environments.

[Jang Young-jae/Director of the KAIST Manufacturing Physical AI Research Center: The hardware itself could end up being just a shell, with Nvidia capturing the actual added value. We may need to develop our own independent strategies...]

From appearing on entertainment shows to throwing a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game, analysts suggest that behind his friendly image lies a sophisticated strategy to preempt the domestic AI ecosystem.

(Video reporting: Yang Hyun-chul, Video editing: Kim Ho-jin, Graphics: Park Cheon-woong)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.