The first stop for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who arrived in South Korea on the 5th, was a "PC bang" (internet cafe). The visit is seen as reflecting both the fact that Nvidia got its start in gaming graphics processing units (GPUs) and the role Korea's PC bang and e-sports markets played in popularizing GPUs. It also appears to be part of a strategy to introduce Nvidia's newly unveiled super chip, the "RTX Spark," to the public through the gaming market.
In an exclusive meeting with the Seoul Economic Daily that day at the T1 Base Camp near Hongdae in Seoul, Huang said, "PC gaming and e-sports started in Korea, and PC gaming is the foundation of Nvidia," adding, "Every time I come to Korea, I consider visiting a PC bang."
The T1 Base Camp that Huang visited is a PC bang and community space operated by T1, a leading domestic e-sports team. T1 is home to Lee Sang-hyeok (Faker), a world-renowned League of Legends (LoL) player. Crowds packed the venue upon news of Huang's visit, and Huang signed autographs for fans one by one. Huang personally inscribed his signature on Nvidia's next-generation gaming graphics card, the "GeForce RTX 5090," together with Faker, received Faker's jersey, and took a photo with him. He asked Faker, "Which graphics card do you use?" and when Faker answered, "I use the GeForce RTX 4090," Huang replied, "That's an antique," drawing laughter from the crowd.
The reason Huang headed straight to a PC bang upon arriving in Korea is that the PC bang holds symbolic significance for him and Nvidia. Korea's PC bang culture, which took off in the late 1990s, drove the popularity of high-spec graphics games, fueling the generational turnover of Nvidia's GPUs and securing its sales. Huang said, "The reason I came to Korea is that Korea is the home of e-sports," recalling his past experience watching gamers playing StarCraft at PC bangs.
The bigger reason Huang is investing effort in the domestic gaming ecosystem is to establish a bridgehead for the expansion of the PC processor market, slated for the second half of this year. This fall, Nvidia will unveil a new super chip, the "RTX Spark," developed in cooperation with Microsoft (MS) and MediaTek. Huang said, "We imagined that an 'AI revolution,' in which AI is integrated into the PC, would begin," and introduced it, saying, "We call the reinvention of the PC, a new beginning, the 'RTX Spark.'" He also presented a voucher exchangeable for the product to a visitor selected by lottery.
The RTX Spark is equipped with the "N1X," a CPU-GPU integrated chip developed in-house by Nvidia. Whereas large language model (LLM)-based AI computations such as ChatGPT and Gemini previously had to pass through large cloud data centers, the RTX Spark, through its high-performance chip, enables "on-device AI" that runs "agentic AI" directly and in real time within the device, without external connections.
Nvidia chose games as the "killer content" to intuitively demonstrate to consumers the performance of high-end AI PCs equipped with the RTX Spark. By showing high-spec AAA-class 3D games running smoothly even on a laptop, the company aims to instantly captivate not only professional developers but also gaming fandoms worldwide. This is also why Huang sought out Faker, an e-sports icon, as the first item on his Korea visit itinerary.
At meetings with Krafton Chairman Chang Byung-gyu and NCSoft CEO Kim Taek-jin, scheduled for the 7th, optimizing game operation and compatibility on the RTX Spark is expected to be a key agenda item. Krafton and NCSoft have already been named official partners of the RTX Spark. There are also observations that cooperation could expand into the "physical AI" field that Nvidia is pushing, based on technology for building virtual environments using game engines.
Behind Nvidia's accelerating push into the PC market—using the Korean gaming industry as a lever—lies a threat to its data center-centered revenue structure. Recently, global Big Tech companies have continued to develop their own AI chips and attempt infrastructure independence to reduce reliance on costly GPUs, while NPUs and ASICs have emerged in the inference semiconductor market, shaking Nvidia's monopoly position. Analysts say the interests of Nvidia, which desperately needs revenue diversification, and domestic game companies, which seek to maximize graphics quality and AI technology on next-generation high-performance platforms, have aligned. An industry official predicted, "If optimization is achieved by applying Nvidia's latest technology from the development stage, it will be a powerful win-win strategy for both companies."
