Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang South Korea trip: What to expect
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks alongside US President Donald Trump at the ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington DC on April 30, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is heading to South Korea, one of the company’s most important markets, ahead of the meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
For Huang, this trip is expected to include a meeting with Trump, as well as executives of South Korea’s largest companies such as Samsung and SK Group, blending business and politics.
Market watchers will also be looking for clues about Nvidia’s future in China.
Here’s what could happen at Nvidia this week:
Nvidia’s main suppliers
South Korea is home to SK Hynix, one of Nvidia’s top suppliers. The company is developing a special type of semiconductor called high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, used in Nvidia’s high-end artificial intelligence systems.
SK Group President Chey Tae-won is among the executives Huang is expected to meet. Yonhap reported. SK Group is the parent company of SK Hynix.
The meeting could be a chance to discuss future HBM development. Rival Samsung is also developing HBM, but the product has not been approved for use by Nvidia. A discussion about progress on Samsung’s HBM may also be on the agenda, as Huang said he would meet with the company on Tuesday.
Infrastructure and business agreements
Huang went on a world tour this year, visiting countries in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Nvidia often announces infrastructure deals during these trips that outline how the tech giant will supply its coveted graphics processing unit-based products to data center projects.
On the sidelines of the Nvidia developers conference in Washington on Tuesday, Huang said his company was partnering with Samsung and automaker Hyundai “in many ways,” including investing in “AI factories.” Term used to describe data centers.
SK Telecom, another subsidiary of SK Group, is currently building data centers in South Korea. Nvidia plans to supply its chips to SK Group. Bloomberg It was reported by quoting people familiar with the subject.
Other areas where Nvidia may announce plans include driverless cars and robotics, a major focus of the South Korean tech industry.
Trump meeting and China
And for Huang, it’s not just about work. Geopolitics will be a big focus as Huang’s trip coincides with a planned meeting between Trump and Xi in South Korea.
Trump called Huang “an incredible man” in his speech at the APEC Summit in South Korea. Separately, Trump said he would meet with the CEO on Wednesday.
This week could be crucial to give insight into Nvidia’s future in China. The tech giant was previously banned by the Trump administration from exporting artificial intelligence chips to China until earlier this year. ended the restrictions. While Nvidia was allowed to export its downgraded H20 chip to China, Beijing reportedly forced local companies not to purchase it. Instead, China is forcing its local companies to buy domestic Nvidia alternatives.
Trump signaled on Wednesday that Nvidia’s Blackwell AI processors might be open to discussions with Xi. The Blackwell chip is Nvidia’s most advanced product and is not currently allowed to be exported to China.
“Trump wants to do business with China and thinks almost everything is business, including Nvidia,” George Chen, partner and co-head of The Asia Group’s digital practice, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“We may see China wanting some sort of guarantee that the US will not add location trackers to US chips that will be sold to China… The US may have its own demands in return, so Nvidia now becomes one of the bargaining chips of the two presidents in Korea.”
In July, Chinese regulators expressed concerns about the security of Nvidia chips. The world’s second-largest economy is a lucrative market for Nvidia, and being left out has cost the tech giant billions of dollars in lost sales. Any opening up of the Chinese market would be positive for the chip maker.
