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South Korea Secures 260,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs in Up to $10 Billion Push for AI Scale

The government will channel the chips into a national compute center to seed company ‘AI factories’ for physical AI.

Overview

  • Officials say the allocation will lift Korea’s GPU stock from about 65,000 to more than 300,000, placing it roughly third globally in compute capacity.
  • Of the 260,000 units, 50,000 are designated for a National AI Computing Center, with major shares earmarked for Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and 60,000 for Naver Cloud.
  • Deliveries are scheduled to start next year and continue through 2030 under a state-led program valued at up to $10 billion.
  • Seoul is adopting a two-track approach that advances large language models while prioritizing physical AI to accelerate manufacturing, mobility, and robotics.
  • Analysts warn of heavy electricity and water demands for cooling, and Nvidia executives say they are working with Korean authorities on energy planning.