South Korea is home to two of the world’s leading memory chip makers – Samsung Electronics and SK hynix – which produce chips essential for AI products and the data centres that the fast-evolving industry relies on.

President Lee has expressed his hope that the country can become a leading AI power.

Nvidia said it was “working with South Korea to expand the nation’s AI infrastructure with over a quarter-million Nvidia GPUs across its sovereign clouds and AI factories”.

Under today’s deal, 50,000 of the chips will go towards a new “AI factory” being built by Samsung Electronics.

“By deploying more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs, AI will be embedded throughout Samsung’s entire manufacturing flow,” the Korean tech giant said.

SK Group and Hyundai Motor Group will also receive 50,000 chips for use in AI facilities.

NAVER Cloud – which operates South Korea’s largest search engine – will receive 60,000 to expand its AI infrastructure.

A further 50,000 will be deployed across Seoul’s National AI Computing Center and to cloud service and IT providers.

“Korea’s leadership in technology and manufacturing positions it at the heart of the AI industrial revolution – where accelerated computing infrastructure becomes as vital as power grids and broadband,” CEO Huang said.