NVIDIA and KAIST launch $300M joint AI research lab to advance South Korea AI ambitions

At AI Summit, South Korea Outlines Its AI Future With NVIDIA and Partners

At this week's AI Summit in San Francisco, South Korean President Jae Myung Lee and some of the country's top business leaders and researchers are meeting with NVIDIA and ecosystem partners to chart Korea's AI progress. Building on NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang's visit to Korea last month, this week's discussions and announcements advance the nation's full-stack push to expand Korea's AI infrastructure and expertise on its path toward becoming a global center for AI innovation. To start, NVIDIA and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) today announced a joint AI research lab at the KAIST Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI in Seoul, dedicated to advancing agentic AI for South Korea. It's the first joint AI lab between a Korean university and any global technology company. The collaboration will establish a robust academic AI research program, bringing together NVIDIA full-stack AI expertise, NVIDIA Nemotron open models and NVIDIA AI Cloud partner computing with the world-class scientific talent at KAIST, one of Asia's premier research universities. Check back here for updates as the summit continues, including Huang's meetings with President Lee as well as Korea and U.S. business leaders. Thursday, July 23, 9 p.m. PT NVIDIA and SK Celebrate Longstanding Collaboration Over Dinner On the eve of the summit, Huang, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, and the SK hynix, SK Telecom and NVIDIA teams gathered for dinner in Woodside, California -- shown in the featured image above. It was a warm welcome to Silicon Valley on a warm summer evening for the Korean business leaders. NVIDIA and SK -- which have had a longstanding partnership -- announced in June an expanded collaboration to codevelop memory for NVIDIA platforms spanning AI infrastructure, personal AI and physical AI. Also in June, SK Telecom announced plans to build AI infrastructure to power Korea's innovation in physical AI, robotics and more. Learn more about NVIDIA's work with Korea ecosystem partners.

NVIDIA and KAIST Launch Joint AI Research Lab to Accelerate AI Innovation in Korea

Collaboration Will Provide World-Class AI Infrastructure, Research Funding, Internships and Joint Appointments to Advance Agentic AI Model Development for Korea * NVIDIA and KAIST are launching a joint AI research lab at the KAIST Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI in Seoul, dedicated to advancing agentic AI models and agent systems built for South Korea's industries, language and future. * The collaboration includes compute contributions, funding for at least 10 KAIST researchers annually with NVIDIA internships, plus full-time NVIDIA roles for top Korean researchers -- creating new pathways for Korea's AI talent. * A core focus is developing models optimized for Korea, using NVIDIA Nemotron open models and local NVIDIA Cloud Partner infrastructure to build a pipeline from academic research to enterprise and national AI deployments. NVIDIA and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) today announced the launch of a joint AI research laboratory at the KAIST Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI in Seoul, dedicated to advancing agentic AI for South Korea. The collaboration will establish a robust academic AI research program, bringing together NVIDIA full-stack AI expertise, NVIDIA Nemotron™ open models and NVIDIA AI Cloud partner computing with the world-class scientific talent at KAIST, one of Asia's premier research universities. "Korea is home to leading AI researchers and is one of the world's most advanced technology ecosystems," said Bill Dally, chief scientist and senior vice president of research at NVIDIA. "The joint NVIDIA-KAIST research lab will provide a foundation for the next frontier of AI research to accelerate AI models and agent systems built for Korea's industries, language and future." "AI research is entering a new era -- one that requires frontier talent, large-scale infrastructure and deep collaboration across academia and industry," said Hyunwoo Kim, incoming faculty member at the KAIST Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI, who will serve as head of the joint NVIDIA-KAIST lab upon joining KAIST. "Together, NVIDIA and KAIST Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI will pursue ambitious work that helps Korea attract and retain top AI scientists while building lasting ties with NVIDIA's global research organization." Full-Stack Infrastructure, Open Models and Collaboration Fuel Korea's AI Future The lab will be established at the KAIST Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI in Seoul. KAIST, headquartered in the tech hub of Daejeon, has a strong focus on public research spanning engineering, AI, semiconductor technology, robotics and digital humanities. The joint lab plans to fund at least 10 KAIST researchers annually and provide each with internship opportunities at NVIDIA. In addition, NVIDIA plans to hire exceptional Korean researchers for full-time positions. Together, these efforts will create stronger pathways for Korea's top AI talent to pursue ambitious research, build long-term careers and deepen global collaboration between academia and industry. The $300 million collaboration is expected to include $50-million-per-year compute contributions across an initial five-year period. Compute infrastructure from local NVIDIA Cloud Partners will provide researchers with direct access to the latest NVIDIA AI infrastructure. Among the lab's priorities will be developing models optimized for the Korean language and Korea-specific use cases, with NVIDIA Nemotron open models to advance the country's AI capabilities, fostering a pipeline from academic discovery to enterprise and national AI deployments.