Nvidia’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju in October, Chosun Daily reported.
The potential visit comes as the U.S. and South Korea pursue a broad strategic alliance on technology and the economy, stoking expectations that companies in both countries will accelerate joint initiatives, the report added.
An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment in an email to Seeking Alpha.
A senior ruling-party official told The Chosun Ilbo that “the government and companies had been reaching out through multiple channels to secure Mr. Huang’s participation,” and noted that the Nvidia chief recently confirmed his attendance, according to the report.
The APEC summit’s agenda will include sessions on “AI for economic development,” with Huang expected to play a leading role, the report added.
“With Huang’s confirmation, expectations for U.S.-Korea semiconductor cooperation are rising sharply,” said the official, adding that the trip signals Nvidia’s intent to bolster collaborations with South Korean companies like SK hynix and Samsung Electronics (OTCPK:SSNLF), the report noted.
SK hynix and Samsung make memory chips, including high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, chips. SK hynix is the main supplier of HBM chips for Nvidia’s accelerators.
Shares of SK hynix (OTCPK:HXSCF) and Samsung fell on Monday after Washington revoked their authorizations to obtain U.S. semiconductor equipment for operations in China. The U.S. Commerce Department had granted the firms waivers from broad 2022 export controls on sales of American semiconductor equipment to China. The companies will now be required to secure licenses to buy equipment for their China operations. The federal filing also listed Intel (INTC) among those losing authorization, though the chipmaker completed the sale of its Dalian plant earlier this year.
South Korea is also in talks to bring other industry leaders, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Sundar Pichai, and Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Tim Cook, the report noted.
Apple, Google and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
Huang had visited China, Japan and Taiwan this year but skipped South Korea — until a surprise appearance at a U.S.–Korea business roundtable in Washington last month, where he met President Lee Jae-myung for the first time. Presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom told reporters that talks included supplying Nvidia-optimized chips from SK hynix and Samsung. Lee, who campaigned on a pledge to secure 50,000 high-performance graphics processing units, or GPUs, by 2030, may push Huang directly for greater access to Nvidia hardware, the report added.
Huang’s presence at APEC could also overlap with a potential summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, increasing the prospect of discussions on AI regulation and supply chain security amid tensions over export regulations, the report noted.
In addition, SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won is said to have invited Huang to the APEC CEO summit. Industry executives anticipate Huang could visit SK hynix’s facilities in Icheon and Cheongju or Samsung’s chip plant in Cheonan after the gathering, the report added.