Nvidia CEO Jensen Hwang travels to Korea: What to expect

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is heading to South Korea, one of the company’s most important markets, ahead of a meeting with US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The trip is expected to be a mix of business and politics for Hwang, as he is scheduled to meet with President Trump as well as executives from South Korea’s largest companies, including Samsung and SK Group.

Market players will also be watching for clues about Nvidia’s future in China.

Here’s what’s happening this week at Nvidia.

South Korea is home to SK Hynix, one of Nvidia’s most important suppliers. The company develops a specific type of semiconductor, so-called high-bandwidth memory (HBM), that goes into Nvidia’s high-end AI systems.

According to Yonhap News, SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won will be among the executives Hwang is scheduled to meet. SK Group is the parent company of SK Hynix.

This meeting could be an opportunity to discuss future HBM developments. Rival Samsung is also developing HBM, but its products have not been certified for use by Nvidia. Hwang said he plans to meet with Samsung on Tuesday, so a discussion about Samsung’s progress on HBM may be scheduled.

Hwang is on a world tour this year visiting countries in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Nvidia often announces infrastructure deals during these visits, outlining how the tech giant will supply coveted graphics processing unit-based products to data center projects.

On the sidelines of the NVIDIA developer conference in Washington on Tuesday, Huang said his company is partnering with Samsung and automaker Hyundai on “many fronts,” including investing in “AI factories” (a term used to refer to data centers).

SK Telecom, another subsidiary of SK Group, is currently building a data center in South Korea. Nvidia plans to supply chips to SK Group, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Other areas where Nvidia could announce plans could include self-driving cars and robotics, which are the main focuses of South Korea’s technology industry.

And for Juan, it’s not just business. Mr. Hwang’s visit coincides with a meeting between President Trump and Mr. Xi scheduled for South Korea, and geopolitics will likely be a major focus.

President Trump called Hwang a “wonderful man” in a speech at the APEC summit in South Korea. Separately, President Trump said he would meet with CEOs on Wednesday.

This week could be an important week for gaining insight into Nvidia’s future in China. The tech giant was previously prohibited from exporting AI chips to China until early this year, when the Trump administration lifted restrictions. Nvidia is allowed to export downgraded H20 chips to China, but the Chinese government is reportedly pressuring local companies not to buy them. Instead, China is encouraging local companies to buy domestic NVIDIA alternatives.

President Trump hinted Wednesday that Nvidia’s Blackwell AI processors could be the subject of discussions with Mr. Xi. Blackwell chips are Nvidia’s most advanced products and are currently not allowed to be exported to China.

“Trump wants to do business with China, and he considers almost everything, including Nvidia, to be business,” George Chen, partner and co-chair of the Asia Group’s digital practice, told CNBC on Wednesday.

“China may want some guarantee that the United States will not add location trackers to the American chips it sells to China…The United States may also have its own demands in return. So Nvidia is now one of the bargain buys for South Korea’s two presidents.”

Chinese regulators raised concerns about the security of Nvidia chips in July. The world’s second-largest economy is a lucrative market for Nvidia, and being shut out has already cost the tech giant billions of dollars in lost revenue. Any opening up of the Chinese market would be a boon for chipmakers.