South Korea Says Nvidia Turmoil Will Not Disrupt Its Contracted GPU Deliveries

"We expect production and the delivery schedule for contracted volumes to proceed without disruption," Ryu said, according to Reuters. He said the ministry was following developments closely and was discussing prices and schedules with Nvidia Korea.

This is one of the first statements from a government that depends on Nvidia hardware for a national AI programme since the company's board opened an independent inquiry on Sunday. South Korea has made access to advanced GPUs central to its plan to build sovereign AI computing capacity, and any disruption to Nvidia's leadership raises questions for governments and companies with large orders waiting to be filled.

Ryu said the 10,000 GPUs paid for under South Korea's 2025 supplementary budget had been delivered and were already in use. Further GPUs planned for 2026 are under contract and expected to go into service this year. Nvidia said in late 2025 that it would supply more than 260,000 of its Blackwell AI chips to South Korea's government and leading companies.

The Nvidia board said on Sunday that a committee of independent directors, working with outside counsel, would examine reports that Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence effort through his relationship with Alice Huang, a businesswoman linked to the Singapore data centre company Megaspeed. The board said it had no reason to believe that US national security or Nvidia's secrets had been compromised. Huang, who admitted to an affair in a message to staff, said he would cooperate fully.

Visit Called Off

The affair has already changed Nvidia's plans in Seoul. Madison Huang, a senior director at Nvidia and the chief executive's daughter, cancelled a visit to South Korea, Reuters reported. AI chip start-up Rebellions said her visit to its headquarters and a dinner with partners had been cancelled. Kakao Mobility said a photo session and question-and-answer event with her had been dropped, but that its business agreement with Nvidia would go ahead, with senior director Gaurav Agarwal attending instead.

Nvidia AI Day Seoul, a two-day event expected to draw about 2,000 participants to discuss physical AI, agentic AI and infrastructure, is going ahead as planned, according to Reuters. Nvidia did not immediately respond to the agency's request for comment.

The Korean comments come as other parts of Asia's AI supply chain feel the pressure. Taiwanese regulators imposed short-selling curbs that took effect on Monday after a selloff in AI and chip stocks, and Nvidia is due to report quarterly results later this month, its first since the investigation began.