Nvidia’s Huang Calls Stock Slide a Buying Opportunity, Says SK Hynix Will Stay Top Memory Partner

Jensen Huang Says ‘the Future of AI Is Very Bright’

Reiterates SK as Nvidia’s Largest Memory Partner

Praises South Korea’s AI Competitiveness as ‘Tremendous’

“It means you can buy it at a lower price now.”

That was Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang’s answer when asked about concerns over a sharp drop in the company’s stock. He added that “the future of AI is very bright” and that “we are at the beginning of it.”

The remarks reinforced the long-term alliance between Nvidia and SK Group. On the evening of June 7, Huang had joked over chicken and beer with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won in Seoul’s Gangnam district that Nvidia needed “more HBM.”

On June 8, Huang and Chey used a joint press conference at SK Seorin Building in Seoul’s Jongno district to announce cooperation on AI factories involving SK Hynix and SK Telecom.

“SK is our largest memory partner,” Huang said in opening remarks. “Without our partnership with SK, the AI industry would not have advanced to where it is today.”

Huang repeatedly stressed that the industry remains at the beginning of a much broader shift. “We are at the start of the AI revolution,” he said. “Everybody will use AI. Every country will use AI. Every company will be powered by AI.”

AI has finally become profitable, he said, and that is why building AI factories matters. When something becomes profitable, everyone wants to build more factories.

He also said demand for AI infrastructure has already entered a strong growth phase. AI infrastructure is being built around the world, technology is advancing rapidly, and AI is now both useful and profitable. That is driving demand for graphics processing units and memory at the same time.

“There is a shortage of GPUs,” Huang said. “That’s why demand for Nvidia computing is so high, and why demand for SK Hynix memory is so high.”

He emphasized that Nvidia’s relationship with SK Hynix goes beyond a simple supply agreement. The two companies are jointly designing their roadmap to advance Nvidia’s architectures alongside SK Hynix’s memory technology and deliver the best performance and value in the market.

During the question-and-answer session, Huang again underscored SK Hynix’s position in Nvidia’s supply chain. Asked whether SK Hynix would become the memory supplier shipping the largest volume to Nvidia, he said SK Hynix has been Nvidia’s largest memory partner and will remain so.

Huang also said Nvidia’s revenue next year from Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell alone will reach $1 trillion. That will require enormous volumes of chips, interconnects, memory, wafers and packaging, he added.

The partnership is also widening in scope. Huang said SK Hynix products are used in Grace Blackwell, next-generation Vera Rubin, Vera, Nvidia’s new central processing unit, RTX Spark introduced with Microsoft, and Jetson Thor, its robotics processor.

“The age of physical AI has finally arrived, and no country is better prepared for robotics than Korea,” Huang said. The partnership is expanding from AI supercomputers to CPUs, PCs and robotics.

Cooperation with SK Telecom is focused on building AI factories in South Korea. “SK Telecom and Nvidia have partnered to build AI factories in Korea,” Huang said. “AI factories will be essential for the country’s education system, universities, scientific research institutes, startups and industries across the economy.”

He said South Korea would in future be powered by artificial intelligence, just as electricity, water and the internet became essential infrastructure.

Huang also gave a strong assessment of South Korea’s competitiveness. He said the country ranks among the world’s best in semiconductor manufacturing and that its memory technology is especially strong. Citing South Korea’s strengths in heavy industry, software, AI, science and mathematics, he called the country one of the world’s key contributors in AI.

“The US is No. 1, China is No. 2, and Korea is probably No. 3,” he said. “That is a tremendous achievement.”

Chey said the partnership marks a turning point, expanding ties with Nvidia from a memory-centered relationship into a broader AI infrastructure alliance across the group.

“Until now, cooperation between SK Hynix and Nvidia has centered on memory,” Chey said. “From here, we want to raise the level of cooperation and move forward together with a bigger picture involving SK Group and Nvidia.”

Chey described the partnership in two parts: building AI factories with Nvidia and sharing research-and-development roadmaps. By creating the same roadmap together, the companies aim to respond more quickly to future high-end demand, he said.

On long-term contracts and pricing, Chey said scarcity exists across chips, energy and water. He said he wants to build a system of long-term contracts so customers and new participants can enter the AI ecosystem with confidence over time.

Through the partnership, SK Hynix has solidified its standing as a core memory partner for Nvidia’s AI platform. SK Telecom has become a key pillar of South Korea’s AI factory and AI cloud business. For SK Group as a whole, the relationship now extends beyond memory supply to AI infrastructure design, data-center operations and shared R&D roadmaps.

“This kind of partnership is a first for us,” Huang said. “It is a partnership that spans multiple years, multiple platforms, multiple technologies and multiple businesses within SK.”

Kim Dae-young / Hong Min-seong, Hankyung.com reporters