Jensen Huang, CEO of U.S.-based Nvidia, will hold a ‘chimaek (chicken and beer)’ meeting in Seoul on the 30th with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun.
According to the business community, Huang is scheduled to meet the two chairmen that evening at a chicken restaurant in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
The venue being mentioned for the meeting is ‘Kkanbu Chicken’, a domestic chicken franchise. The slang term kkangbu, meaning close friend or partner, appeared in the Netflix original series
Huang, a Taiwanese American, has shown a modest side during visits to Taiwan, eating street foods such as fried squid at night markets and long-established eateries. There is even a ‘Jensen Huang restaurant list’ circulating online.
Samsung Electronics is seeking to supply Nvidia with high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a key component of AI chips. Hyundai Motor Group also entered into a strategic partnership with Nvidia in January and has been collaborating in areas such as robotics and autonomous driving. During this trip to Korea, Huang is expected to unveil the signing of supply contracts to provide Nvidia AI chips to major domestic companies including Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor Group. At a technology conference (GTC) held in the United States on the 28th local time, after mentioning ‘Samsung, SK, Hyundai, LG, Naver’, Huang said, “I expect there will be an announcement that will truly delight the people of Korea.”
After finishing his schedule in Seoul, Huang will move on to Gyeongju. On the afternoon of the 31st, the final day of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, he is scheduled to speak in a special session. Lee and Chung are also expected to head to Gyeongju and attend a dinner hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping that day.
