Jensen Huang, Koo Kwang-mo seal AI alliance with warm embrace

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has singled out robotics as his investment focus in South Korea, met LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo again Sunday — just three days after the two first got together in Hongdae. The two leaders greeted each other with a handshake and a warm embrace, signaling a deepening alliance.

Huang arrived at LG Twin Towers in Yeouido Sunday morning, accompanied by his eldest daughter Madison Huang, senior director of Omniverse and robotics product marketing, her fiancé, and Jeong So-young, president of Nvidia Korea. He came directly from SK Group's Seorin Building in Jongno-gu, where he and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won had just announced cooperation plans including an AI factory initiative.

Chairman Koo and LG Corp. Vice Chairman Kwon Bong-seok waited in the lobby about 10 minutes before Huang arrived. Huang and Koo greeted each other with a handshake followed by a warm hug.

The two leaders then met with Nvidia officials and the heads of LG affiliates, including LG Electronics CEO Ryu Jae-cheol, LG CNS CEO Hyun Shin-kyun and LG Uplus CEO Hong Beom-sik. Nvidia and LG Group are expected to pursue wide-ranging cooperation spanning robots, smart factories, cooling solutions and autonomous driving.

LG Group is overhauling its entire portfolio around robotics. LG Electronics has applied autonomous mobile robot technology to hospitality sectors — including serving, delivery and guide functions — as well as logistics operations such as transport and loading. The company is now pursuing a home robot business built around humanoid robots, while also developing cooling solutions for AI data centers and AI factory construction projects.

LG CNS signed a strategic partnership with Skild AI last year to develop industrial AI humanoid robot solutions, taking on responsibility for the full cycle from robot training to operation as it positions itself as a leader in AI transformation and robot transformation. LG Uplus, meanwhile, is accelerating the buildout of AI data centers.

The group's capabilities extend further: LG Energy Solution covers batteries, LG Innotek sensors, and LG Display robot faces — giving LG Group a comprehensive set of core technologies needed to realize physical AI. LG also holds world-class manufacturing floor data essential for building AI factories, one of Nvidia's key business areas.

For Nvidia, which is pushing hard into physical AI, a partnership with LG Group is a natural fit. When Huang arrived in South Korea on Friday, he told reporters: "Korea is the manufacturing center of the world. We can apply our robotics technology, our physical AI technology here. Korea is excellent in manufacturing, mechatronics and AI technology. It also has a very large domestic industrial base that can support the robotics industry and robotics development." He had made similar remarks to Korean journalists in Taiwan, saying he could "invest in robotics" — a pointed signal that cooperation between the two is set to deepen.

In his keynote at Nvidia GTC Taiwan 2026, Huang predicted that the era of physical AI would follow that of agentic AI. Madison Huang's visit to LG in April was part of that preparation. After meeting LG Electronics CEO Ryu and other executives for about an hour and 10 minutes, she told reporters the discussions covered "physical AI, AI infrastructure solutions and robotics."

LG Electronics and Nvidia are believed to have discussed integrating CLOiD — the home robot LG unveiled at CES 2026 earlier this year — with Nvidia's robotics platform Isaac. At CES, CLOiD demonstrated folding laundry using robotic fingers, considered the most technically demanding capability in humanoid robotics.

Three months later, Chairman Koo traveled to Silicon Valley to visit Skild AI, where he was photographed in conversation with co-founder Abhinav Gupta in front of a humanoid robot. The visit was widely read as a signal that LG Group is actively cultivating physical AI as a core growth engine.