By Heejin Kim and Hyunjoo Jin
SEOUL, June 4 (Reuters) - When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang makes his second visit to South Korea in just seven months this week, it won't be only to meet top memory chip and robotics executives, but to throw the first pitch at a baseball game and appear on a TV talk show.
While a celebrity in his own right, the charm push by the Taiwan-born 63-year-old highlights South Korea's critical position in the AI landscape. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix between them make about 70%
of the memory needed for AI chips like Nvidia's. And the country's strength in manufacturing and robotics sets it up to be a key player in physical AI, where AI is embedded in robots, cars and factories.
"Nvidia's dependence on South Korean suppliers is rising," Jeff Kim, an analyst at Seoul-based KB Securities, wrote in a research note.
Huang "needs a manufacturing site for physical AI," Kim said. "South Korea is emerging as a perfect testbed."
Asia's fourth-largest economy is also a major Nvidia customer, with the Silicon Valley-based company announcing in October that it would supply more than 260,000 of its most advanced AI chips to the government and some of the country's biggest businesses.
Analysts and investors say South Korea's importance has been magnified after trade frictions spoiled sales of the most-advanced semiconductors to China.
"South Korean companies are running high-end factories, which need a lot of these kinds of chips," said Seung-yub Lee, a fund manager at Seoul-based Quad Investment Management.
President Lee Jae Myung has vowed to make AI investment a top policy priority, aiming to turn South Korea into one of the world's top three AI powers amid a broader push to counter the economic impact of a shrinking population.
"Korea is a critical part of our ecosystem," Huang told reporters at a dinner with South Korean tech executives on Monday in Taipei, the first day of the annual, industry-defining Computex trade show.
He highlighted robotics when asked where Nvidia could invest, because "Korea is a manufacturing country, and Korea has a population limit."
"We have a lot to do together," he said.
Huang's plans clearly include courting the country's 50 million-strong population.
He will appear on one of South Korea's most popular talk shows, "You Quiz on the Block", which its production company, CJ ENM, likens to the Jimmy Fallon Show in the U.S.
And he will don a Doosan Bears jersey to throw the first pitch at Sunday's home game against the Kiwoom Heroes, with Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won acting as the ceremonial first batter. Arms of chaebol Doosan develop robots and make materials used in Nvidia's Blackwell chips.
Park Ju-gun, head of corporate analysis firm Leaders Index, said Huang learned a lesson from his visit in October, when a meeting over chicken and beer with the chiefs of Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor at a Kkanbu Chicken outlet generated a big media buzz.
Huang was coy when asked by Reuters which South Korean executives he would meet this time, but food will again be a feature.
According to local media, he may have a Korean barbecue dinner in Seoul's trendy Sungsu area with executives from SK Group, Hyundai Motor and LG Group.
Reuters has reported likely meetings with LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and executives at South Korea's top online platform, Naver.
(Reporting by Heejin Kim, Hyunjoo Jin and Brenda Goh; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Ed Davies and Kevin Buckland)
