Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to arrive in South Korea on Thursday for packed 4-day schedule

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to arrive in South Korea as early as Thursday evening, less than a year after his last visit in October.

As one of the most sought-after figures in the AI industry, Huang faces a packed five-day schedule — from a dinner with top conglomerate chiefs to meetings with startup founders and university students. His crowd-pleasing side will also be on display: he is scheduled to throw a ceremonial first pitch at a professional baseball game and appear on the popular variety show "You Quiz on the Block."

Particularly notable this visit is the prospect of concrete cooperation in physical AI and robotics. Huang made physical AI a central theme of his keynote at GTC Taipei 2026, and having cited South Korea as a key investment destination for robotics, his visit is expected to help expand the country's robot ecosystem.

Industry sources said Huang is expected to land in South Korea Thursday evening, heading straight from Taiwan, where he attended Nvidia's annual AI conference, GTC Taipei 2026.

His official schedule begins Friday, with a samgyeopsal — grilled pork belly — dinner with major business leaders at a restaurant in Seongsu-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul. Attention is focused on whether the gathering will recapture the buzz of last year's now-famous "Kanbu" meeting.

During his October visit for the APEC CEO Summit, Huang met Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung at Kanbu Chicken in Samseong-dong, Seoul, for a "chimaek" — chicken and beer — get-together. The word "kanbu," meaning a close and trusted friend, made the meeting a global talking point.

This time, the dinner will include SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Corp Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Naver founder and Chairman Lee Hae-jin, along with Euisun Chung, who attended last year's Kanbu meeting.

Huang is expected to rest on Saturday. On Sunday, he will throw the ceremonial first pitch before a Doosan Bears home game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, taking the mound wearing jersey No. 93 — a nod to Nvidia's founding year of 1993. Doosan Group Chairman Park Jung-won will bat in response.

Whether Huang and Park will discuss robotics cooperation before the game is a key point of interest. Huang's eldest daughter, Madison Huang, senior director of product marketing for Nvidia Omniverse and Robotics, visited Doosan Robotics in April to discuss building a robot execution platform.

Huang will also meet NCsoft CEO Kim Taek-jin on Sunday. NCsoft has maintained an ongoing collaboration with Nvidia in gaming. A meeting with Krafton Chairman Chang Byung-gyu is also expected, though the exact timing has not been confirmed. Both companies are pushing beyond gaming into physical AI, and related discussions are anticipated.

On Monday, Huang is scheduled to meet AI and robotics startup founders as well as students. A roundtable with domestic AI and robotics company heads is planned at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, with participants including Nota, Realworld and Upstage.

He will also visit Seoul National University's AI Institute and robotics laboratory that day — a site his daughter Madison had visited earlier — where he is expected to engage directly with students.

Visits to major corporate headquarters are also on the Monday agenda. At Naver's 1784 campus, discussions are expected to cover AI factory development, sovereign AI and physical AI. Naver Cloud was cited as a key Nvidia partner at GTC Taipei 2026. Huang is also set to visit the headquarters of Hyundai Motor Group and LG Group.

Physical AI is expected to be the dominant topic of Huang's conversations with South Korean companies throughout the visit.

Huang put physical AI front and center in his GTC Taipei 2026 keynote on Monday, where Nvidia introduced a range of new offerings — from Cosmos 3, a foundation model for physical AI, to Isaac GR00T, a humanoid robot platform. He also named Samsung Electronics affiliate Rainbow Robotics, LG Electronics' CLOi and Hyundai Motor Group as robotics collaboration partners.

Huang signaled a strong commitment to partnering with Korean companies. At the "Korea Partner Night" dinner with Korean firms on Monday, he said, "We will always look at investing in Korea," adding, "Korea has a great ecosystem and the companies are excellent." He specifically cited robotics as a concrete area for investment.

"I think robotics is very important for Korea," he said. "I hope Nvidia can contribute to the development of robotics in Korea."

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said at Computex 2026 that memory bottlenecks would persist through 2030 and that SK Group aimed to double its production capacity within five years. He was also photographed with Jensen Huang on the sidelines of the event.

최태원 “2030년까지 메모리 병목…5년 내 생산능력 2배로 확대”…젠슨 황과도 ‘찰칵’ [컴퓨텍스 2026]

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