"Nvidia and Korea's technology are growing together."
Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang took the mound to throw the ceremonial first pitch on Friday at a Doosan (000150) Bears home game against the Kiwoom Heroes at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, on the third day of his visit to Korea. He appeared in a Doosan jersey bearing the number 93, marking Nvidia's founding year of 1993, and waved repeatedly to greet the crowd. Park Jeong-won, chairman of Doosan Group and owner of the Doosan Bears, appeared alongside Huang as the ceremonial batter, wearing the number 96 on his back, signifying Doosan's founding year of 1896. After completing his pitch, Huang moved to the stands and enjoyed "chimaek" (chicken and beer) with baseball fans. As he left the stadium, he expressed regret, saying, "It was a wild pitch and a terrible ball that nearly hit Chairman Park."
The pair's ceremonial pitch and batting that day are seen as a symbolic scene that goes beyond a simple event, demonstrating the close ties between the two companies, which have been discussing cooperation in the robotics and automation fields.
Nvidia is investing effort in Doosan because the company holds a firm competitive edge in the physical artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem. Doosan Group has recently built a core value chain spanning the semiconductor supply chain from materials to testing through structural reforms led by Chairman Park, and it also holds a robotics business. Indeed, Doosan Group's key executives turned out in full force at the closed-door meeting between Huang and Chairman Park that day, including Chief Business Officer (CBO) President Yoo Seung-woo, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) President Kim Do-won, and Doosan Robotics (454910) CEO Kim Min-pyo. Notably, Park Sang-soo, head of the global business strategy team at Doosan Bobcat (241560) and Chairman Park's eldest son, also attended, drawing attention.
Doosan Group and Nvidia have been steadily broadening their points of contact since declaring a strategic partnership to strengthen physical AI last October. The plan is to train Nvidia's physical AI models on the construction machinery, power equipment, and robotics business data that Doosan has accumulated over decades to secure a customized foundation model (FM). As part of this, in April this year, Madison Huang, Nvidia's senior director of Omniverse and robotics product marketing and Huang's daughter, personally visited the Doosan Robotics Innovation Center in Bundang-gu, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
At the time, Doosan Robotics presented a concrete roadmap to sequentially unveil an intelligent robot solution based on an agentic robot operating system in 2027 and an industrial humanoid product in 2028 through its cooperation with Nvidia.
Right after the ceremonial pitch and watching the game, Huang held a "second kkanbu meeting" with SK (034730) Group. At Kkanbu Chicken's Samseong Station branch in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, where he had met Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisun Chung during his visit seven months ago, this time he met SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, SK hynix (000660) CEO and President Kwak Noh-jung, SK hynix AI Infrastructure President Kim Ju-seon, SK Telecom (017670) CEO and President Jung Jae-heon, and SK Telecom Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Jung Suk-keun. When Chairman Chey did a "love shot" with Huang and expressed joy, saying, "We've finally become kkanbu," Huang responded, "So Good," creating a warm and friendly atmosphere.
The meeting, which invited only SK Group separately, is analyzed as reflecting the gradually expanding cooperative relationship between the two companies in the AI memory supply chain and infrastructure ecosystem. Nvidia plans to begin full-scale mass production of its next-generation AI computing platform "Vera Rubin" in the second half of the year, which will be equipped with various types of memory, including SK hynix's HBM4 (sixth generation) and low-power DRAM (LPDDR). SK Telecom is also expected to build a Vera Rubin-based cluster, as it is pushing to introduce ultra-high-density racks at both the "Ulsan AI Data Center (AIDC)" being built in the Mipo National Industrial Complex in Ulsan and the AIDC being developed in the southwestern region in cooperation with OpenAI. In relation to this, Huang said, "I'm here this time discussing plans, and there may be a few announcements." He is scheduled to meet Chairman Chey again at the SK Seorin Building in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Saturday morning, after which he will explain matters such as the status of AI cooperation between SK and Nvidia.
Meanwhile, Huang had lunch with Chairman Euisun Chung that day at a Pyongyang cold-noodle specialty restaurant in Jongno-gu, Seoul, and on Saturday he will visit Hyundai Motor's headquarters in Yangjae-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, to discuss specific business issues. On the same day, he is also known to be planning to meet major Samsung Electronics executives, including Jun Young-hyun, head of Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions (DS) division. In addition, visits to the LG headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, and Naver's 1784 building in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, are scheduled.
