Nvidia and Hyundai Expand Alliance to Industrialise Robotics and Physical AI

Huang and Chung Map Out a Robotics Future in Seoul

Nvidia and Hyundai have agreed to deepen their alliance, aiming to turn physical AI and robotics into real, deployable industrial products. Speaking after talks at Hyundai's Seoul headquarters on Monday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun outlined an expanded vision spanning mobility, manufacturing, and smart factories. Huang declared the two companies are getting "very very close" to industrialising robotics and plan to bring AI to "all forms of mobility."

From Lab to Factory Floor

The meeting took place at Hyundai's headquarters, which the automaker has rebuilt as a "physical AI testbed" complete with robots handling security, deliveries, and even watering plants in the lobby. The leaders laid out a plan to move robotics from research into industrial deployment, leveraging Hyundai's manufacturing scale to build globally scalable robotics platforms trained first in simulation. "Hyundai is incredible at manufacturing, incredible at mobility, incredible at heavy industries, manufacturing at extremely large scales," Huang told reporters. "No one is in a better position to take advantage of that."

The Saemangeum 'AI Valley'

The partnership builds on a collaboration announced last October, under which Hyundai committed to building AI infrastructure powered by Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs. Much of Monday's discussion centred on Hyundai's 9 trillion won (about $5.9 billion) plan to build an AI data centre, a robot manufacturing cluster, and a hydrogen plant in Saemangeum, a site Huang dubbed South Korea's "AI Valley." Chung suggested more investment could follow and floated the idea of a "perfect AI ecosystem" if Nvidia formally joins the project. Reports indicate Hyundai plans to deploy up to 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs across in-vehicle intelligence, autonomous driving, factory automation, and robotics.

Atlas and Boston Dynamics

The flagship example of the collaboration is Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoid robot, owned by Hyundai, whose production-ready version was unveiled at CES in January. Hyundai aims to mass-produce Atlas from 2028, at up to 30,000 units per year. Huang and Chung also viewed Boston Dynamics' Spot robot together during the visit.

A Broader South Korea Push

Huang's Hyundai visit was part of a four-day trip to South Korea during which Nvidia struck deals with SK Hynix on advanced memory, SK Telecom on AI cloud infrastructure, and held chip collaboration discussions with Samsung Electronics. Investors responded positively, with Hyundai Motor shares jumping nearly 7 per cent on the day.