When Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., stood before more than 500 fans gathered at COEX in Seoul on Oct. 30 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the GeForce GPU’s Korean launch, he opened his speech with an unexpected confession.
“In 1996, I received a letter from Korea for the first time in my life,” Huang said. “It was beautifully written – from someone I didn’t know.”
That letter, he revealed, was sent by the late Lee Kun-hee, the legendary chairman of Samsung Electronics, whose words would profoundly shape both Huang’s life and the future of the technology industry. Standing beside Samsung Chairman Jay Y. Lee and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisun Chung, Huang told the audience, “That letter is the reason I came to Korea.”
Jay Y. Lee then turned to the crowd and added softly, “The letter was written by my father.” The audience erupted into applause – a moment that bridged generations of visionaries and symbolized how a single idea, conceived nearly three decades ago, helped set the foundation for the digital era.
A VISION AHEAD OF ITS TIME
When Lee’s letter was written in 1996, Korea’s digital landscape was nothing like today. The internet was slow and text-based, limited to dial-up online service, while PCs lacked the power to run online games.
Yet Lee envisioned a future where broadband networks would connect the nation, video games would become a cultural and industrial force, and the world would one day gather for a video game Olympics. It was a vision far ahead of its time – one that few could comprehend.
Lee’s foresight wasn’t limited to technology. His 1993 Frankfurt Declaration, remembered for the phrase “Change everything except your wife and children,” became the rallying cry for Samsung’s transformation into a global brand.
He also believed that “one genius can feed 100,000 people,” underscoring his conviction that talent and creativity would define the companies of the future. The letter to a young, relatively unknown Jensen Huang, who had just founded Nvidia a few years earlier, reflected that same philosophy: investing in brilliance before the world could see it.
A VISION REALIZED
Three decades later, Lee’s dream has been realized. The world’s first graphics processing unit (GPU), the GeForce 256, was born through the synergy of Samsung’s memory technology and Nvidia’s graphics innovation.
Korea’s rollout of high-speed internet transformed the nation’s digital culture, spawning the PC bang phenomenon and giving rise to e-sports. In 2000, with Samsung’s sponsorship, the World Cyber Games (WCG) became a global event.
Huang reflected on this legacy at the Seoul event, saying, “Without Korea’s PC bang(internet café) culture and e-sports, there would be no Nvidia as we know it today.”
