The world's most valuable company wants to turn AI into a physical reality and has set its sights on a country in Asia

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang landed in South Korea on Friday for his second visit to the Asian country in just seven months. He will meet with leaders in the memory chip and robotics industries, but more than that, he will test the ground to produce “physical” artificial intelligence in the Asian country.

Physical AI refers to AI systems that are not just implemented in software, but are integrated into objects and machines that interact directly with the real world.

If a chatbot like ChatGPT processes and generates text, a physical AI system must perceive, understand and act on its environment. One of the most well-known areas where companies want to implement physical AI is that of robotics.

Robots are already widely used in warehouses to process heavy goods and parcels, as well as for other routine tasks. But most of the current models perform tasks linearly, being programmed based on algorithms. In other words, they are not “powered” by AI.

One of the companies trying to change this is Tesla, Elon Musk's company has been working on the humanoid robot “Optimus” for several years. Musk even says that, in the long term, Tesla's main business will no longer be the production of cars, but of robots.

For now, both Tesla and other automakers are working with AI to improve their self-driving cars.

Another field of application of physical artificial intelligence is that of autonomous drones, which can be used both in the economy and for military purposes. Musk and other Silicon Valley leaders estimate that, in total, the annual market for physical AI will reach trillions of dollars.

Nvidia boss, in image campaign in South Korea

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, 63, prepared a veritable image campaign for the trip to South Korea. Known for his unconventional style for a Silicon Valley leader for the leather jacket he almost never takes off, Huang is received like a rock star every time he returns to his native Taiwan.

Now, Huang's plans for the new visit to South Korea clearly include getting closer to the country's population of about 50 million, Reuters writes.

He will appear on “You Quiz on the Block,” one of the most popular talk shows in South Korea, comparable to TV host Jimmy Fallon's show in the United States.

Huang will also don the jersey of the Doosan Bears baseball team to throw out the first ball in Sunday's home game. The choice of the team is not random. The team is owned by the Doosan industrial group, which is one of the top 10 heavy machinery manufacturers in the world and is also the oldest company in South Korea. Park Jeong-won, chairman of the Doosan Group, will also be on the field alongside Huang in the ceremonial role of first batter.

Divisions of the Doosan conglomerate develop robots and produce materials used in Nvidia's “Blackwell” chips.

Companies in the Asian country are playing a key role in the race to develop AI

Park Ju-gun, director of corporate analyst firm Leaders Index, told Reuters that Huang had learned a lesson from his previous visit to South Korea. Then a meeting at a “Kkanbu Chicken” restaurant, where he served chicken and beer with executives from Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, generated considerable media interest.

Asked by Reuters which South Korean executives he will be meeting with this time, Huang avoided giving details, but food will again play a big role. According to local media, he may be attending a Korean barbecue dinner in Sungsu, a trendy neighborhood in Seoul, with executives from SK, Hyundai Motor and LG groups.

The visit of the head of Nvidia to South Korea highlights the critical position of this country in the landscape of artificial intelligence. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together make about 70 percent of the memory chips needed for hardware like Nvidia's for AI systems.

Major market share in memory chips has seen both Samsung and Hynix surpass a market capitalization of more than one trillion (1 trillion) dollars this year. Only two non-US companies are above that threshold: semiconductor manufacturer TSMC of Taiwan and Saudi Aramco, the state oil company of Saudi Arabia.

Nvidia's market capitalization was, at the time of writing, $5.2 trillion. It is followed in the ranking of the most valuable companies in the world by Apple (4.5 trillion), Alphabet – the parent company of Google (4.3 trillion), Microsoft (3.1 trillion) and Amazon (2.6 trillion).

The world's most valuable company is increasingly dependent on South Korean suppliers

In addition, South Korea's strength in industrial manufacturing and robotics make it a key player in the development of physical artificial intelligence.

“Nvidia's dependence on South Korean suppliers is increasing,” Jeff Kim of Seoul-based KB Securities wrote in a research note.

Huang “needs a manufacturing center for physical AI,” he continued. “South Korea is shaping up to be an ideal testing environment,” he pointed out.

Asia's fourth-largest economy is also a major customer for Nvidia. The Silicon Valley-based company announced in October that it would supply more than 260,000 of its most advanced AI chips to the South Korean government and some of the country's biggest companies.

South Korea wants to become the third power in the field of AI, after the US and China

Analysts and investors say South Korea's importance has grown further after trade tensions hurt sales of its most advanced semiconductors to China.

“South Korean companies operate high-end factories that need large quantities of these types of chips,” Seung-yub Lee, a fund manager at Quad Investment Management in Seoul, told Reuters.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has vowed to make investment in artificial intelligence a major government policy priority, aiming to make South Korea one of the world's top three AI powers as part of a broader effort to counter the economic impact of population decline.

“Korea is an essential part of our ecosystem,” Huang told reporters at a dinner with South Korean tech industry executives in Taiwan on Monday on the first day of Computex. The annual event is one that sets the tone for industry trends.

Asked where Nvidia might invest, he singled out robotics because “Korea is a manufacturing country, and Korea has a demographic limit.” “We have a lot to do together,” he said.