South Korea GPU - Market Share Analysis, Industry Trends & Statistics, Growth Forecasts (2026-2031)

The south korea gPU market size was valued at USD 7.75 billion in 2025 and is estimated to grow from USD 8.93 billion in 2026 to USD 20.71 billion by 2031, at a CAGR of 18.32% during the forecast period (2026-2031). This report is Segmented by Integration Type (Integrated GPUs and Discrete GPUs), and Device Application (Mobile Devices and Tablets, Pcs and Workstations, Servers and Datacenter Accelerators, Gaming Consoles and Handhelds, Automotive and ADAS, and More). The Market Forecasts are Provided in Terms of Value (USD).

South Korea GPU Market Trends and Insights

Explosive Growth of AI Workloads in Domestic Data Centers

Seoul’s goal of hosting country-specific large-language-model services is driving unprecedented GPU procurement. Operators are colocating new halls next to existing generation assets to offset the energy draw of 260,000 NVIDIA accelerators earmarked by the government, a scale equivalent to the load of a large nuclear reactor. Shinsegae’s 250-megawatt complex in Yongin, slated for late 2026, will become the nation's largest private AI facility. Samsung SDS plans to produce 50,000 units for its National AI Computing Center, enabling smaller enterprises to rent time on domestic clusters rather than rely on foreign clouds. Demand already outpaces government quotas four-to-one, pointing to tight capacity over the medium term. The result is a winner-takes-most environment that favors groups that can secure land, power, and early preferential memory allocations.

Rising Popularity of AAA PC Gaming Titles Requiring High-End GPUs

The country’s esports heritage now coexists with an enthusiast niche that demands 4K ray tracing at triple-digit frame rates. NVIDIA cards captured three-quarters of the do-it-yourself channel in late 2025, while premium models such as the GeForce RTX 5090 sold at 1.8 times suggested retail due to constrained supply. Samsung and LG Display, which account for a significant share of global OLED gaming monitor output, raised refresh rates to 480 hertz, forcing GPUs to sustain higher throughput. Compliance with VESA DisplayHDR 1400 and ISO/IEC 23003-5 further raises performance thresholds, indirectly boosting discrete attach rates. Retail spending on gaming rigs, therefore, rises in lock-step with every display specification leap.

Memory Supply-Chain Bottlenecks Affecting HBM Availability

High-bandwidth memory now sets the throughput ceiling for AI accelerators. SK hynix began HBM4 production in January 2026 and captured a significant share of NVIDIA’s early allocation, while Samsung’s ramp lagged after thermal-management hurdles. A single Blackwell GPU requires up to eight HBM3e stacks and even more under HBM4, making wafer allocation a zero-sum game. Samsung earmarked more than half of its SOCAMM2 output, roughly 100 billion Gb, for NVIDIA in 2026. Each wafer diverted to HBM squeezes DDR5 supply, lifting costs across the memory spectrum.

Other drivers and restraints analyzed in the detailed report include:

• Government Subsidies for Fabless Chip Start-ups Focused on GPUs
• Integration of GPUs in Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems Mandated for 2027
• Domestic Talent Shortage in GPU Architecture Design

For complete list of drivers and restraints, kindly check the Table Of Contents.

Segment Analysis

Discrete accelerators held 66.73% of the South Korea GPU market share in 2025 after hyperscale buyers prioritized plug-and-play scalability. Samsung SDS, Shinsegae, and Hyundai collectively reserved more than 150,000 add-in boards through 2029, most of them NVIDIA Blackwell units. Such orders lock in PCIe Gen5 backplanes and liquid-cooling loops for at least two refresh cycles, ensuring long revenue tails for board vendors. Import levies at 10% and episodic reciprocal tariffs briefly at 25% raise the total cost of ownership, yet buyers still choose discrete cards because integrated alternatives lack the raw tensor throughput needed for generative AI.

In consumer channels, the escalation in esports prize pools and OLED monitor refresh rates reinforces the premium halo around high-end discrete cards. Integrated GPUs, by contrast, ride mobile and automotive demand where thermal envelopes and value-added tax exemptions for locally fabbed SoCs create cost advantages. Samsung’s Exynos 2600 illustrates this pivot, bundling an RDNA 4 graphics block that handles hardware ray tracing in a handset. Over the forecast horizon, the South Korean GPU market for integrated solutions will grow, yet discrete silicon remains the revenue anchor for data-center and workstation workloads.

Complete Report Scope:

• By Integration Type
  • Integrated GPUs (iGPU)
  • Discrete GPUs (dGPU)
• By Device Application
  • Mobile Devices and Tablets
  • PCs and Workstations
  • Servers and Datacenter Accelerators
  • Gaming Consoles and Handhelds
  • Automotive / ADAS
  • Other Embedded and Edge Devices

List of Companies Covered in this Report:

• NVIDIA Corporation
• Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
• Intel Corporation
• Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
• ARM Ltd.
• Apple Inc.
• ASPEED Technology Inc.
• SiliconArts Inc.
• Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
• Alphabet Inc. (Google)
• SK hynix Inc.
• MediaTek Inc.
• AMD Radeon Technologies Group

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support