LG Group is rapidly expanding its cooperation with NVIDIA across various fields, including AI infrastructure, smart manufacturing, and robotics. Against this backdrop, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo is scheduled to meet with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang for the second time in Silicon Valley, USA, next week.

The meeting between the two comes approximately two months after their first official gathering held on June 8 at the LG Group headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul. The industry is noting that this Silicon Valley visit marks Chairman Koo's first local business trip in four months.

During the June meeting in Yeouido, the two held a private meeting for about an hour and subsequently announced an expansion of cooperation in areas such as robotics, AI infrastructure, and autonomous driving. At the time, Chairman Koo stated that he had received an invitation from Jensen Huang to visit California to continue further discussions.

Contacts between the two companies have continued since then. On June 22, approximately 30 LG Group executives, including LG CNS President Hyun Shin-gyun and LG Science Park CEO Chung Soo-heon, visited NVIDIA headquarters. Additionally, Kim Chang-tae, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of LG Electronics, recently mentioned the possibility of a strategic partnership with NVIDIA at the ecosystem level for AI platforms during the second-quarter earnings call.

■ Cooperation Expansion from AI Infrastructure to Smart Manufacturing

On the 27th of last month, LG Electronics announced that it had completed verification of a 600kW-class Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) to be applied to NVIDIA's AI infrastructure. This equipment supplies coolant to core components such as GPUs and CPUs inside servers to control heat generation, holding an important position in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) industry.

Collaboration is also underway in the smart manufacturing sector. LG Electronics is pursuing the construction of automated factories by linking 770TB of manufacturing and production data accumulated at production sites over the past decade with NVIDIA's digital twin platform 'Omniverse.'

■ Joint Development of Robot Business... Aiming to Standardize Reference Robots

In the robotics field, last June, the two companies agreed to jointly develop a reference robot based on NVIDIA's open robot foundation model 'Isaac GR00T.' This is the result of LG Electronics' goal to expand its business from home appliances to robotics aligning with NVIDIA's strategy to secure customers for its robot foundation models and semiconductors for robots.

If the reference robot is successfully commercialized, components owned by LG Group, such as cameras, actuators, and sensors, could become industry standards.

■ Pushing to Introduce 10,000 Blackwell GPUs to Strengthen EXAONE

The introduction of NVIDIA's advanced GPUs, necessary for the development of LG Group's proprietary AI model 'EXAONE' and the expansion of its AI business, is also a subject of discussion. LG Group is pushing to introduce 10,000 Blackwell GPUs from NVIDIA and is also negotiating securing additional quantities and the introduction schedule.

Given that the second meeting has been arranged within a short period, industry attention is focused on whether concrete cooperation measures in areas such as robotics, AI infrastructure, smart manufacturing, and data centers will be disclosed.