[Edaily Reporter Ahn Yu-ri] "NVIDIA has grown alongside you (gamers)."

CEO Huang met with Jang Byung-kyu, Chairman of #Krafton, and Kim Taek-jin, CEO of #NC, at a PC bang in the Gangnam area of Seoul this afternoon, expressing his affection for the gaming industry. This marks a series of PC bang visits following his meeting with Faker Lee Sang-hyeok at "T1 Base Camp" on the 5th.

CEO Huang first visited a PUBG user event, marking his second visit to a PC bang in Korea. He appeared before the gamers after having a “naengmyeon meeting” with Chairman Chung Eui-sun at the naengmyeon restaurant “Uraeok” earlier that day.

CEO Huang said, “Korea is the first country to export esports to the world,” adding, “Thanks to Korea, esports has spread across the globe.”

Krafton Chairman Jang Byung-gyu attended the event. Chairman Jang personally hosted the event and interpreted CEO Huang’s remarks. Chairman Jang also promised to treat attendees to fried chicken.

On this day, CEO Huang drew attention by presenting NVIDIA’s latest graphics processing unit (GPU), the ‘GeForce RTX 5090,’ and vouchers for the RTX Spark—set to launch this fall—through a prize draw.

After the event, Chairman Jang met with reporters and said, “It wasn’t a situation where I could discuss business matters,” but added, “As you know, we have been collaborating with NVIDIA.”

He continued, “The RTX Spark is a chip where gaming and AI converge,” adding, “Krafton has also been developing ‘PUBG Ally’ over the past one to two years to align with that,” and noted, “This was an event where we could share with gamers new chips and technologies, as well as new platforms like ‘PUBG Ally’ created by the fusion of gaming and AI.”

PUBG Ally is an AI companion character featured in ‘PUBG: Battlegrounds,’ jointly developed by Krafton and NVIDIA. It is an AI model that runs on a small language model (SLM) on-device based on NVIDIA ACE.

Jensen Huang and Kim Tae-jin Join Hands to Show Their Friendship: “We Love Aion 2 and NC!”

Immediately after the Krafton event, CEO Huang headed to another PC bang located 400 meters away for NC Soft’s “AION 2” user event.

CEO Hwang showcased his friendship with CEO Kim Taek-jin, saying, “I love AION 2! I love NC Soft! TJ, you are my wingman.”

CEO Hwang visited the user seating area of the PC bang, obliged requests for autographs, and then participated in a prize drawing event, just as he had at the previous PC bang event.

CEO Kim Taek-jin met with reporters immediately after the event and said, “NVIDIA has been with us since we launched Lineage in 2002,” adding, “When Lineage 2 was officially launched in 2003, we installed GeForce graphics cards in PC bangs nationwide.”

CEO Kim added, “NVIDIA played a significant role back then, and since our Lineage 2 also contributed to its success, the relationship that began then has continued to this day.”

The collaboration between NVIDIA and the two companies is expected to expand beyond gaming into the fields of robotics and physical AI. NC AI, a subsidiary of NCSoft, is scheduled to attend a private briefing hosted by NVIDIA on the 8th for domestic robotics and AI startups. NC AI has been accelerating its efforts in related businesses, including the establishment of a "Physical AI Lab" earlier this year and the unveiling of the World Foundation Model (WFM).

Jang Byung-kyu, Chairman of Krafton, said, “In terms of AI, Korea is still catching up and ranks among the top three globally, but in the gaming sector, we seem to be performing slightly better than third place.” He added, “So, naturally, it seems that (NVIDIA) is coming to Korea to seek out game companies.”