This year, the Korea Society is honored to announce the 2026 Van Fleet Award recipient is Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA, in recognition of his visionary leadership and transformative contributions to the artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor industries — sectors central to the evolving U.S.–Korea economic partnership. Jensen Huang co-founded NVIDIA in 1993 and invented the GPU in 1999 — the breakthrough that built the foundation of today’s AI evolution. His deep and sustained partnerships with SK Group, Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor Group, and Naver have made South Korea an indispensable partner in global AI infrastructure. The 2026 Van Fleet Award honors, for the first time, Huang’s historic and ongoing contribution to the U.S.–Korea bilateral alliance — and the technology future they are building together.
