Nvidia and Hyundai expand alliance on robotics and AI

Nvidia and Hyundai Deepen Alliance on Physical AI and Robotics

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun outlined an expanded partnership in Seoul on Monday, targeting physical AI and robotics across mobility, manufacturing, and smart factories. Huang declared the two companies are getting “very very close” to industrializing robotics and plan to bring AI to “all forms of mobility.”yna

From Lab to Factory Floor

The meeting took place at Hyundai’s Seoul headquarters, which the automaker has rebuilt as a “physical AI testbed” — complete with robots handling security, deliveries, and even watering plants in the lobby. After their talks, the two 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.thenextweb

“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 and to create that than Hyundai.”thenextweb

The partnership builds on a collaboration announced in October, under which Hyundai committed to establishing AI infrastructure powered by Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs. Much of Monday’s discussion centered on Hyundai’s 9 trillion won (approximately $5.9 billion) plan to build an AI data center, a robot manufacturing cluster, and a hydrogen plant in Saemangeum, a site Huang called South Korea’s “AI Valley.” Chung suggested more investment could follow and floated a “perfect AI ecosystem” if Nvidia formally joins the project.reuters

Robotics Roadmap and Boston Dynamics

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

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 percent on the day.businessinsider