South Korea Expects No Disruption to Contracted NVIDIA GPU Supply, Vice Science Minister Says

Reuters reported on November 9, 2026, that Ryu Jae-myung, vice minister of South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, said he expects no delays in the supply of contracted NVIDIA GPUs. The 10,000 units funded through the 2025 supplementary budget have already arrived and are in use, and the 2026 allocation is also under contract and expected to be operational within the year.

For operators of computing infrastructure using GPUs in South Korea, the 10,000 units that have arrived and are in use are at a different stage from the contracted units scheduled to become operational in 2026. The vice minister’s statement indicates an outlook for continued supply, but does not specify the number of planned units or provide evidence that they are operational, so contracts and actual operations need to be considered separately.

The report indicates that the South Korean government has offered an outlook on GPU supply and distinguished between the status of procured resources already in operation and those still planned. The 10,000 units funded through the 2025 supplementary budget are said to have arrived and be in use, while the 2026 allocation is under contract and expected to become operational within the year. The former is a statement about actual operations; the latter concerns future supply and planned operations, and should not be treated as an achievement with the same level of certainty. A report published by Physical AI News, Reuters reports about 600,000 NVIDIA H200 GPUs stranded in Hong Kong, awaiting Chinese import approval, covered H200 inventory awaiting approval for import into China. This report concerns contracted GPU supply to South Korea, a different country, product and situation. Comparing the volume of inventory in Hong Kong with the outlook for contract fulfillment in South Korea does not provide a basis for directly comparing the supply conditions or available computing resources in the two countries. This statement should be read with the differing contracts and export procedures for each destination in mind. For the industry, an important point is that assessments of GPU availability involve stages beyond whether a contract exists: arrival, the start of operations and continued use. The South Korean government’s statement clearly distinguishes the 10,000 units already in use from the 2026 allocation, which is expected to become operational later. However, the report provides no information on the number of units in the 2026 allocation or whether the planned units have actually become operational. The figures to watch are the planned unit count, delivery and operational results, and any changes to the supply schedule. Officials are also reported to be discussing prices and timing, but no specific terms or agreements were disclosed. Therefore, what can be confirmed at this point is the South Korean government’s outlook on supply, which should be distinguished from actual results that would confirm the planned allocation has been delivered.