Nvidia is providing AI chips for robotics applications to engineering students at Seoul National University (SNU) and offering training on various development software. This marks the first time Nvidia has provided semiconductor products and official training programs free of charge to a Korean university for undergraduate education purposes.
According to the information technology (IT) industry on the 5th, Nvidia provided 20 units of its "Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit" to SNU's Department of Mechanical Engineering free of charge over March and April. The Jetson series is a compact computing module that combines a central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), and memory chips on a single board. It was developed for edge computing, performing AI computations directly on machines such as robots, drones, and medical devices rather than sending data to a central cloud server. Nvidia provided the Jetson kits for use by mechanical engineering faculty and students in hands-on robot development.
In addition, Nvidia plans to conduct training for mechanical engineering students on how to use Nvidia's software development kits (SDKs). To use the Jetson series, users must be able to handle Nvidia's software kit called "JetPack." Much of the software included in JetPack is designed for professionals, making it difficult for university students to use immediately without separate training. Accordingly, Nvidia Korea and MDS Tech, Nvidia's domestic distributor, plan to conduct initial Jetson training for SNU students in May.
This is the first time Nvidia has officially provided both products and training programs free of charge to a Korean university. "Nvidia's headquarters reportedly became positively involved in the project after being briefed on the opportunity to collaborate with SNU, Korea's leading university," an IT industry source familiar with Nvidia's Korean operations said.
Nvidia is also planning an education program in which it will dispatch experts to SNU's regular undergraduate courses to teach robot development directly. Nvidia and SNU are pursuing a plan to partially introduce Nvidia's "Deep Learning Institute (DLI)" curriculum into the Department of Mechanical Engineering's "Creative Engineering Design" course, which will open in the second semester of this year. DLI is an education program in which Nvidia teaches the fundamentals of GPU-based deep learning, how to use Nvidia's SDKs, and applications of industry-specific robot development.
Currently, the leading option under discussion is for Nvidia Korea to conduct the DLI training directly without charging SNU separately. As a result, SNU will receive Nvidia's latest edge AI computing module, the "Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit," as teaching equipment, along with free training on basic AI chip software usage and robot development.
A notable aspect of the education initiative between Nvidia and SNU is that Nvidia is fully supporting a freshman-level course. Creative Engineering Design is one of SNU's flagship engineering courses, established in 1992. Its main feature is that first-year engineering students directly build robots over the course of a semester. Nvidia's intent is to pass on the ability to use its products and software to SNU engineering students through this hands-on course.
Behind the SNU robotics talent development initiative lies a strategy to cultivate loyal customers by instilling experience with Nvidia products early on. Nvidia has been investing in building its developer ecosystem since around the mid-2000s. A long-standing philosophy of Nvidia's business is that market dominance requires creating a lock-in effect not only through hardware quality but also through software user experience.
Nvidia's rise to become the world's largest company by market capitalization amid the AI boom is attributed to the organic integration of its GPUs and its GPU programming software "CUDA," as well as the influx of countless developers into the Nvidia ecosystem. GPUs, originally developed for graphics processing, had a drawback of being difficult to program for other uses. To address this, Nvidia developed CUDA, which transformed GPUs into resources that could be used for data training and computation. Subsequently, AI researchers flocked to the Nvidia ecosystem.
Nvidia also emphasizes the importance of building a developer ecosystem in public forums. Madison Huang, senior director of product marketing for Nvidia's Omniverse and Robotics and eldest daughter of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, met with SNU students on the SNU campus on the 28th of last month and said, "Computers alone are not enough to realize Physical AI," stressing that "developers must come together to form an ecosystem."
Ultimately, considering Nvidia's basic business philosophy, the support for SNU can be interpreted as a strategy to bring robotics talent into Nvidia's ecosystem in advance, in Korea, where Physical AI has significant potential. Yoo Eung-jun, CEO of June AI Consulting and former CEO of Nvidia Korea, said, "The business areas Nvidia is recently focusing on in the Physical AI field are humanoid robots, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), robotic arms, and autonomous driving." He added, "If Nvidia is providing specialized training to a specific group such as mechanical engineering students, it appears to be an investment to cultivate future talent in three fields excluding autonomous driving while also securing them as future customers."
The number of major Korean corporations eyeing engineering talent lock-in is also growing. While Nvidia's intent is to secure future customers, Korean conglomerates clearly aim to nurture promising talent who will carry the future of their companies. Large corporations are acquiring talent by establishing contract-based academic departments that guarantee employment after graduation.
Samsung Electronics (005930) was early in establishing contract-based departments. Samsung Electronics created the Department of Semiconductor Systems Engineering with Sungkyunkwan University in 2006, producing about 70 graduates each year. Currently, it has expanded its pipeline for semiconductor talent by signing agreements with seven universities including Sungkyunkwan University, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH). SK hynix (000660) began establishing an employment-linked semiconductor engineering department at Korea University and recruiting new students in 2021. Recently, there has been a trend of gathering talent through contract-based departments in industries beyond semiconductors. Samsung SDI (006400) and Sungkyunkwan University newly established a battery engineering department this year. LG Electronics (066570) and Pusan National University plan to launch a smart home appliance engineering department next year.
Interest among prospective students in corporate contract-based departments is also growing accordingly. According to Jongno Academy, the number of applicants to contract-based departments of major corporations such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix in the regular admissions for the 2026 academic year was 2,478. This is a 38.7% increase compared to the previous year (1,787). This contrasts with a 24.7% decrease in applicants to medical and pharmaceutical departments during the same period.
Experts predict that the movement to secure customized engineering talent through industry-academia partnerships will continue. "From a company's perspective, there is an advantage in being able to obtain human resources that match the company's talent profile while training university students," said Bae Sang-hoon, a professor of education at Sungkyunkwan University. "Ultimately, a company's competitiveness depends on how well it can secure science and technology talent."
