From PC bangs and baseball to boardrooms and labs, Nvidia CEO combines celebrity appeal with business diplomacy

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s Korea trip has unfolded with fanfare, selfies and a full course of Korean crowd-pleasers — from a PC bang appearance with a legendary League of Legends player to candid talks with the country’s top tech chiefs over Korean barbecue.

Through Monday night, Huang’s itinerary was set to span more PC bang stops, fried chicken, samgyetang and baseball as he discussed next-generation technologies and sought to reinforce Nvidia’s collaboration with Korean partners in AI, robotics and semiconductors.

Touching down in Seoul on Friday with what he called many “surprises” for Korea, Huang rekindled the buzz of last year’s Kkanbu Chicken meetup, this time with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Naver founder Lee Hae-jin over pork belly and drinks in Hongdae, Seoul.

“Go Korea! SK, LG, Naver, cheers!” Huang toasted with the three Korean business leaders, raising glasses of somaek, a mix of soju and beer. They sat down at Hyeongnim Jeoyo, an old-school pork belly joint whose name roughly translates as “Bro, it’s me.”

“Business is booming!” said Huang as he stepped outside during dinner to speak to reporters. “Korea is doing very well, my partners in Korea are very important to me. So I came to Korea to thank them, celebrate and congratulate them for such an incredible year. This is just a beginning.”

A large crowd gathered outside the venue hours before the dinner began at 7 p.m. as hundreds of people hoped to catch a glimpse of Huang and the Korean business leaders.

When asked whether he has any gifts for Korea, Huang said he brought four: Vera Rubin, Vera, RTX Spark, and Jetson series (Drive Thor and Jetson Thor). These advanced AI and physical AI chips from his company use “a lot” of high-value memory chips that Korean suppliers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix produce, such as high-bandwidth memory and LPDDR5, he said.

“Of course, we are also building a very prominent research center here,” Huang said. Earlier at the airport, he confirmed that Nvidia will build a research and development center here, highlighting how Korea has “excellent expertise” in AI, robotics and semiconductors.

He also pointed to Nvidia’s growing partnerships with Hyundai Motor Group in robotics, as well as with LG Group, SK, Samsung and Naver.

“Korea is a manufacturing center of the world. We can apply the robotics and the physical AI technologies that we invent here for the industry.”

After landing in Seoul earlier in the day, Huang made his first official stop at T1 Base Camp, an internet gaming cafe locally known as a PC bang. There, he met with gaming fans and Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, captain of T1’s League of Legends team and widely regarded as the greatest player in the game’s history.

“That was my first stop to recognize that GeForce and Korea have been friends for 25 years,” Huang said, referring to Nvidia’s graphics cards and its gaming roots. “And my friend Faker. Do you know Faker? Unbelievable. Incredible gamer.”

During the dinner, the business leaders came outside to hand out boxes of doughnuts and Korean snacks to the crowd. One of the snacks, honey-banana-flavored chips made by SK hynix, drew attention for its initials — HBM — a playful nod to high-bandwidth memory chips made by the chipmaker.

For the second leg of the evening, the executives walked through the streets of Hongdae, drawing a large crowd of onlookers, before heading to a nearby barbecue outlet and a popular fried chicken chain.

The stop underscored Huang’s well-publicized affection for Korean food.

“I really like Korean barbecue. I also love fried chicken and samgyetang is the best. Everything is delicious,” he said at the airport.

Huang’s wife Lori and daughter Madison were also present at the dinner.

In Korean barbecue culture, the youngest person at the table is often expected to take the tongs. So when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sat down with Korea’s tech chiefs at a pork belly joint called Hyeongnim Jeoyo, attention quickly turned to who would grill the meat.

The role fell to LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, 48, the youngest among the business leaders. He was spotted grilling pork belly at the table, a moment he later confirmed himself.

SK’s Chey, 66, was the eldest, followed by Huang, 63, Naver’s Lee, 59, and Koo.

The restaurant’s name added to the buzz. “Hyeongnim” refers to an older brother or senior male acquaintance in Korean, a term that carries both hierarchy and affection — fitting for a dinner meant to project warmth and camaraderie.

Madison Huang, Jensen Huang’s daughter and an Nvidia board member, is said to have been deeply involved in selecting the restaurants, as she was for last year’s Kkanbu Chicken meeting with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun.

The bill also became part of the night’s lore. Lee reportedly paid for the first round using Naver Pay’s facial recognition payment system installed at the restaurant. The total came to more than 5.67 million won ($3,600), covering the entire restaurant.

At the second stop, a nearby fried chicken restaurant, Chey played the “big brother,” treating the crowd in a Korean-style “golden bell” gesture, in which one person pays for everyone.

On Saturday, Huang reportedly filmed an episode of “YouQuiz on the Block,” tvN’s popular talk show hosted by Yoo Jae-suk.

On Sunday, the third day of his Korea trip, Huang met Hyundai Motor Group’s Chung over a Pyongyang-style cold noodle lunch, before meeting the heads of two major Korean gaming companies.

At a PC bang in Gangnam, Huang met with Krafton founder Chang Byung-gyu, Chief AI Officer Lee Kang-wook and the head of PUBG: Battlegrounds, the company’s flagship title.

At another PC bang, he attended NC’s AION2 user event, where he met with participants and NC CEO Kim Taek-jin.

Later in the day, Huang took the mound at Jamsil Baseball Stadium wearing a Doosan Bears jersey with the number 93, a nod to Nvidia’s founding year, 1993. Doosan Group Chairman Park Jeong-won also stood in the batter’s box wearing number 96, marking Doosan’s founding year, 1896.

For dinner, Huang was also expected to meet with SK Group’s Chey again, this time joined by SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung and SK Telecom CEO Jung Jai-hun. The group was set to revisit the Kkanbu Chicken restaurant near Samseong Station where Huang met the Samsung and Hyundai chiefs last year.

On Monday, likely the final day of his Korea trip, Huang is expected to broaden Nvidia’s ties with Korea’s AI and robotics ecosystem through meetings with Seoul National University’s AI Institute and robotics lab, as well as LG Group, Hyundai Motor Group and Naver.

In the morning, Huang will visit LG Group headquarters in Yeouido and meet Naver’s Lee at Naver 1784 in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, in the afternoon.

Later Monday, Huang is scheduled to hold a closed-door meeting with Korean AI and robotics startup executives at The Shilla Seoul, with Upstage, Nota, RLWRLD and Aei Robot expected to attend.

He is also expected to meet Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyung-hoon to discuss AI cooperation, including GPU supply.