Hyundai Motor Group and NVIDIA have announced a deepened collaboration to build an artificial intelligence factory powered by NVIDIA Blackwell infrastructure, targeting autonomous vehicles, smart factories and robotics applications.
The partnership involves approximately $3 billion in investment to advance Korea’s physical AI landscape, with plans to deploy 50,000 NVIDIA Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) for integrated AI model training, validation and deployment.
The collaboration extends beyond the two companies, with the Korean government signing a memorandum of understanding on 31 October to support national physical AI cluster development. The Ministry of Science and ICT, Hyundai Motor Group and NVIDIA will establish physical AI application centres, technology centres and data centres in Korea.
“For Korea to leap forward as a leading nation in AI, the advancement of physical AI is essential,” said Bae Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT of the Republic of Korea.
“By combining Korea’s rich manufacturing data with NVIDIA’s cutting-edge AI infrastructure, we expect to build a win-win model through collaboration with domestic companies.”
Technical infrastructure and applications
Hyundai Motor Group will use three NVIDIA AI compute platforms as the foundation for its physical AI operations. The NVIDIA DGX platform will enable large-scale AI model training and software development, while NVIDIA Omniverse and Cosmos running on RTX PRO Servers will support digital twins and simulation for manufacturing optimisation and autonomous vehicle testing.
The NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor platform will serve as the AI processing unit for real-time intelligence in vehicles and robots, running on the safety-certified DriveOS operating system.
The collaboration will focus on developing factory digital twins using NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise platform, creating virtual replicas of manufacturing environments for precision control, validation and predictive maintenance capabilities.
For autonomous vehicle development, Hyundai Motor Group is testing NVIDIA Omniverse and Cosmos platforms to build digital twins of regional driving environments, incorporating extensive simulations to advance development pipelines.
Advanced AI models built with NVIDIA Nemotron reasoning models and NeMo software will enable over-the-air updates of vehicle capabilities and features, including personalised digital assistants, intelligent infotainment and adaptive comfort systems.
“As we enter a new era of AI-powered mobility and smart factory, deepening our collaboration with NVIDIA marks a pivotal step forward,” said Euisun Chung, Executive Chair of Hyundai Motor Group.
“Together, we are not only building advanced technologies but also laying the foundation for a robust AI ecosystem in Korea.”
NVIDIA founder and chief executive Jensen Huang said AI will revolutionise transportation from vehicle design and manufacturing to robotics and autonomous driving.
“Together with Hyundai Motor Group, we’re building intelligent cars and factories that will shape the future of the multitrillion-dollar mobility industry,” Huang said.
The partnership represents a shift from strategic adoption of existing platforms to joint innovation of core physical AI technologies, with implications for the global automotive industry’s move toward software-defined vehicles and autonomous manufacturing systems.
For Australian consumers, the collaboration signals continued advancement in autonomous vehicle technology and AI-powered automotive features, though local availability of these technologies will depend on regulatory approval and market deployment strategies.
Automobile Magazine-AU
