Nvidia has secured one of its largest sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) deals to date, agreeing to supply South Korea with up to 260,000 advanced AI chips as the country races to build domestic computing infrastructure and reduce reliance on foreign AI systems, according to reporting from Yahoo! Finance.
The agreements were unveiled during the APEC Summit in South Korea and include separate partnerships with four of the nation’s largest companies — Samsung, SK Group, Hyundai, and NAVER Cloud — as well as the South Korean government. The rollout will expand South Korea’s current use of Nvidia processors from 65,000 to more than 300,000, Yahoo! Finance reported.
The deals mark a significant expansion of Nvidia’s sovereign AI strategy — a growing trend in which countries develop national AI infrastructure and models to ensure technological independence. Nvidia has inked similar agreements over the past year with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and multiple European governments.
Nvidia declined to disclose deal values or timelines, according to Yahoo! Finance. But the company has previously estimated the sovereign AI market could reach $1.5 trillion within several years. During its August earnings call, Nvidia projected these deals will contribute more than $20 billion to its fiscal 2026 revenue.
The push also comes as U.S. export controls have largely shut Nvidia out of China — once as much as 25% of its business. “Without China, Nvidia would need to expand the rest of its international business,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told Yahoo! Finance.
Under the new commitments:
- Samsung, SK Group, and Hyundai will each build AI data centers powered by 50,000 Nvidia GPUs.
- NAVER Cloud will deploy 60,000 GPUs to expand national cloud and AI services.
- South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT will purchase more than 50,000 chips to develop sovereign AI models.
“These deals help companies and local organizations build a sovereign AI cloud in their own country,” Nvidia vice president Raymond Teh said, according to Yahoo! Finance.
Nvidia shares have surged in recent days and briefly pushed the company’s market valuation above $5 trillion — the first in history for any publicly traded firm.
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