NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield forge $10 billion partnership to build Korea's sovereign AI future

NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield to Expand Korea's National AI Factory Infrastructure Buildout

Planned Investments to Scale NAVER's Initial Multi-Tenant NVIDIA DSX AI Factory to 200 Megawatts by 2028, Fueling Next Generation of Korea and US AI Innovators * NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield plan to invest in gigawatt-scale, multi-tenant AI cloud infrastructure to power the next generation of AI companies in Korea and the U.S. * NAVER and NVIDIA team plan to expand the initial NVIDIA DSX AI factory buildout at GAK Sejong data center from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts by 2028. * NAVER plans to continue its path toward gigawatt-scale sovereign AI infrastructure, deploying the NVIDIA DSX platform to deliver full-stack, lowest-cost AI factory infrastructure for enterprises, industries and government. AI Summit -- NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield today announced a proposed expansion of Korea's sovereign AI factory infrastructure, with planned investments that will grow the initial NVIDIA DSX™ AI factory deployment to 200 megawatts -- more than tripling the 55-megawatt buildout announced last month. NAVER intends to expand its deployment of NVIDIA AI infrastructure to 1 gigawatt. Announced during Korea President Jae Myung Lee's AI Summit visit to San Francisco, the planned 200-megawatt expansion marks a significant acceleration of Korea's national AI ambitions. The expanded infrastructure will be built with the NVIDIA DSX platform at NAVER's GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Sejong, South Korea. NVIDIA plans to invest $1 billion into NAVER Corp. Brookfield has entered into a nonbinding term sheet to fund up to $9 billion. NAVER will fund the remaining amounts to finance the project. NVIDIA's planned investment is subject to customary closing conditions and NAVER finalizing at least $9 billion of committed financing for the project, separate from NVIDIA's planned investment. The expanded infrastructure will provide Korea- and U.S.-based AI innovators with access to production-scale AI compute for building next-generation models, agents and AI-powered services. "NVIDIA's planned strategic investment and our infrastructure supply agreement with Brookfield have propelled NAVER's vision for the AI factory business into a robust execution phase," said Haejin Lee, founder and chairman of NAVER. "Leveraging the solid partnerships with our global partners, we will drive technological innovation, foster a sovereign AI ecosystem and spearhead efforts to strengthen South Korea's AI competitiveness." "The partnership will combine Brookfield's global AI infrastructure investment capabilities, NAVER's full-stack AI and data center operating expertise, and NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform to advance Korea's AI capabilities," said Sikander Rashid, global head of AI infrastructure at Brookfield. "As AI adoption accelerates across the global economy, access to trusted, sovereign and scalable AI infrastructure is becoming an increasingly important strategic priority for companies and countries." "AI factories are the infrastructure nations need to compete and innovate in the intelligence era," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Together, NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield are building sovereign AI infrastructure at the scale needed to fuel Korea's startups and industries. This is how nations and companies are building their futures in the age of AI." Expanding AI Factory Capacity to Fuel AI Innovators The 200-megawatt AI factory is expected to feature advanced NVIDIA AI infrastructure including the NVIDIA Vera Rubin and NVIDIA Blackwell platforms. It intends to provide the compute, software and support needed to develop and deploy competitive AI models and applications at scale. As an NVIDIA Cloud Partner, NAVER provides deep expertise in operating hyperscale infrastructure powered by the full-stack NVIDIA AI platform. Today's proposed expansion builds on the June announcement in which NAVER committed to extending its GAK Sejong data center with NVIDIA DSX, with a long-term path to gigawatt-scale sovereign AI infrastructure to serve Korea's enterprises, industries, government organizations and global AI cloud customers. Brookfield Investments Scale AI Infrastructure Deployments Brookfield has established one of the industry's leading AI infrastructure investment platforms, with approximately $100 billion of assets under management across the AI infrastructure value chain including data centers, compute, semiconductor manufacturing and dedicated power generation. The planned NAVER investment will mark another significant milestone in Brookfield's strategic partnership with NVIDIA. Building on NVIDIA's participation as a founding partner in the Brookfield Global AI Infrastructure Program, the planned investment combines Brookfield's capital and AI infrastructure and power expertise with NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform to support the deployment of large-scale AI factories. Brookfield has been an active, long-term investor in Korea since establishing a presence in the country in 2014 and currently manages approximately $12 billion of assets across infrastructure, real estate and energy. NVIDIA DSX Platform Powers Expansion The NVIDIA DSX platform provides an end-to-end, codesigned stack for AI factories -- spanning chips, systems, software, facilities and partner technologies -- purpose-built to minimize token cost and accelerate time to first production. NVIDIA DSX MaxLPS™ software maximizes token throughput per megawatt, while NVIDIA DSX OS™ provides lifecycle management, health automation, resiliency and multi-tenant AI factory management across the expanded infrastructure. Open Models Accelerate Growth In addition, the expanded infrastructure builds on NAVER and NVIDIA's collaboration on open model development for agentic and physical AI. NAVER is advancing its HyperCLOVA X models to be based on NVIDIA Nemotron™ 3 Ultra open models with its proprietary data and training expertise. NAVER is also the first Korean company to join the NVIDIA Nemotron Coalition, contributing to open model development across pretraining, post-training and reinforcement learning. NAVER plans to launch an AI agent platform in Korea in the second half of the year, powered by NVIDIA Agent Toolkit software including NVIDIA NemoClaw™ blueprints. NAVER is also developing a Seoul World Model using proprietary urban street-view and spatial modeling data, built on NVIDIA Cosmos™ world foundation models.

Global Market Update | South Korea's Naver jumps 10% on Nvidia's $1 billion investment plan

Nvidia will invest one billion dollars in Naver's new shares. This investment supports expanding an AI data center project in South Korea. Brookfield will provide up to nine billion dollars in financing for this initiative. The expanded data center will utilize Nvidia's chip platforms by 2028. This collaboration aims to tap into sovereign AI demand across global regions. Shares of South Korean internet and cloud service giant Naver jumped more than 10% on Monday after it said Nvidia would acquire $1 billion of its new shares to finance a project to expand an AI data centre. The investment comes after the two firms and investment group Brookfield announced on Friday plans to expand Naver's AI data ⁠centre ⁠in South Korea with up to $10 billion in funding. US MarketsPowered By As on 25 Jul 2026, 01:30 AM IST S&P 500 Top Gainers International Paper42.16(11.21%) Smurfit WestRock48.56(11.10%) SLB52.42(11.01%) Digital Realty Trust199.08(11.01%) Gainers" S&P 500 Top Losers C.H. Robinson Worldwide186.51(-9.25%) Coterra Energy32.56(-8.62%) Intel92.32(-7.89%) West Pharmaceutical Servs328.20(-7.67%) Losers" Naver said on Monday it will place 7.2 million new shares with Nvidia for 204,500 won each, or a 1% discount to its closing price on Friday, as part of the agreement. Brookfield will provide up to $9 billion in financing as the project's capital partner, Naver added. With the investment, Nvidia would become one of the ⁠biggest shareholders of Naver, owning a 4.5% stake. The National Pension Service was the biggest shareholder of Naver with a 9.25% stake, followed ⁠by BlackRock Fund Advisors with 6.12% as of end-2025. The expansion will be built at Naver's GAK data centre in the city of Sejong in South Korea, using Nvidia's Vera Rubin and Blackwell chip platforms, and it will have a capacity of 200 megawatts by 2028. In June, Naver and Nvidia announced an agreement to jointly pursue the development of gigawatt-scale global AI infrastructure, aiming to tap demand for sovereign AI from the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the Middle East. One gigawatt is about four times the maximum capacity of GAK Sejong, South Korea's largest hyperscale ⁠data centre operated by Naver. It represents a scale capable of accommodating hundreds of thousands of Nvidia's latest GPUs at once, Naver said. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has argued that nations should build and control their own AI infrastructure, a strategy that could broaden Nvidia's customer base beyond major U.S. hyperscalers. Nvidia has invested in AI, cloud and other companies, including a $30 billion investment in OpenAI and a $10 billion investment in Anthropic.

Nvidia Deepens South Korea AI Push With $1 Billion NAVER Investment - NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) plans to invest about $1 billion in NAVER Corp as part of a broader effort to expand artificial intelligence datacenter infrastructure in South Korea. NAVER To Issue Shares To NVIDIA A regulatory filing from NAVER on Monday said NVIDIA will buy 7.2 million newly issued shares at 204,500 KRW ($139.45) each, about a 1% discount to NAVER's Friday closing price, as part of its planned $1 billion investment. NAVER also updated the partnership structure, saying NVIDIA will participate as the supplier of GPUs for the AI datacenter rather than as a partner sharing revenue and business risks. Next-Generation AI Systems NVIDIA said the expanded facility is expected to deploy Vera Rubin and Blackwell systems, providing production-scale AI computing capacity for enterprises, startups and government organizations. The companies said the project will support the development and deployment of next-generation AI models and applications across South Korea. NAVER Partnership Grows The deal expands a partnership announced in June, when NAVER said it would use NVIDIA technology to support AI data center expansion and industrial AI applications. The June announcement also included NVIDIA's partnerships with SK Hynix (NASDAQ:SKHY), SK Telecom and Doosan as NVIDIA expanded its presence in the country's AI ecosystem. Price Action: NVDA's shares closed 0.92% lower on Friday at $206.84 and fell 0.02% in extended trading. In Seoul, NAVER was up 7.23% at 222,500 KRW ($151.76) at the time of writing. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Nvidia invests $1 bil. in Naver for 4.5% stake - The Korea Times

Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin, right, shakes hands with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang after signing a $1 billion strategic investment agreement at Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., Friday (local time). Courtesy of Naver Nvidia has agreed to acquire a 4.5 percent stake in Naver through a $1 billion strategic investment, deepening a partnership aimed at building large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and expanding sovereign AI services. Naver announced Monday that it had signed an agreement to issue about 7.24 million new shares to Nvidia through a third-party allotment, marking its first such share sale in 22 years and the first since its 2008 KOSPI listing. The new shares, priced at 204,500 won ($140) each, represent a 4.5 percent stake in Naver. Payment is scheduled for Oct. 30. Naver said it would cancel about 4.9 million treasury shares worth about 1 trillion won on Aug. 3 to offset shareholder dilution from the new share issuance. Following the cancellation, Nvidia is expected to become Naver's third-largest shareholder, behind the National Pension Service and BlackRock. The investment follows an agreement between the two companies in June to jointly develop gigawatt-scale AI factories, expanding their partnership beyond Nvidia's role in supplying graphics processing units (GPUs). Naver said its IT arm, Naver Cloud, is in discussions with Nvidia on an AI compute partnership to jointly pursue global AI factory projects. It added that the partnership would extend beyond technology cooperation to include demand and capital, with Nvidia expected to participate alongside Naver Cloud in the AI factory business. Naver said Nvidia's investment reflects what it described as its integrated AI capabilities, including data centers, GPU clusters, AI platforms, proprietary foundation models and commercial AI services. "Naver, which became the first company in the world to commercialize Nvidia's supercomputing infrastructure in 2019, has integrated core data center technologies, including cooling, power and networking, for AI workloads, based on more than 20 years of infrastructure operating experience," the company said. The investment is part of a broader plan that Naver unveiled to build an AI factory at its GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Korea, backed by a combined $10 billion from Nvidia and Canadian investment firm Brookfield. Brookfield signed a nonbinding agreement to provide up to $9 billion in financing for the infrastructure needed to operate the factory. The initial phase of the project will expand its AI infrastructure to 200 megawatts. The facility will have capacity for about 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, based on its Vera Rubin and Blackwell platforms. Naver said it aims to begin generating revenue from the AI factory business next year, with a 55-megawatt facility scheduled to begin operations in the first half of 2027. It plans to expand capacity to 200 megawatts by 2028 and eventually to 1 gigawatt. "The investments from Nvidia and Brookfield would mark an important milestone for Naver's future growth and provide an opportunity for the company to expand rapidly into the global AI infrastructure market by leveraging its technology and infrastructure," Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said. "Naver aims to quickly secure customers for its AI factory business and use the investment as a springboard to become a leading player in the global AI infrastructure market."

Brookfield to commit up to $9 billion to expand South Korean AI data centre

SAN FRANCISCO -- Brookfield Asset Management plans to invest up to US$9 billion in AI infrastructure as part of a partnership with Nvidia to expand a data centre in South Korea. As part of the deal, Nvidia would invest US$1 billion into South Korean internet company Naver Corp., which will fund the remaining amounts to finance the project. The expanded infrastructure will be built with Nvidia's DSX platform at Naver's GAK Sejong hyperscale data centre in Sejong, South Korea. In a news release, Brookfield touts its AI infrastructure investment platforms as industry-leading, managing approximately US$100 billion of assets such as data centres, semiconductor manufacturing and dedicated power generation. Sikander Rashid, the private equity firm's global head of AI infrastructure, says the partnership will combine Brookfield's global AI infrastructure investment capabilities, Naver's AI and data centre operating expertise, and Nvidia's accelerated computing platform to advance the country's AI capabilities. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder and CEO, says the trio is "building sovereign AI infrastructure at the scale needed to fuel Korea's startups and industries." This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 27, 2026.

Naver gets $10 bil. investment from Nvidia, Brookfield - The Korea Times

Naver's logo is seen at its company's headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province / Korea Times file Naver, the country's leading internet portal operator, has received a combined $10 billion investment commitment from Nvidia and U.S. private equity firm Brookfield to finance its project to build an artificial intelligence (AI) data center here. With the funding, Naver, also a major cloud service provider, will be able to accelerate its project, according to Lee Hae-jin, founder of Naver, in an AI summit held in San Francisco on Friday (local time). Earlier, Naver said it would work with Nvidia to build large-scale, global AI infrastructure, starting with an expansion of its data center in South Korea. Brookfield has agreed to invest up to $9 billion in Naver.

Naver jumps to one-month high as Nvidia takes $1 billion stake for AI data center By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Shares of South Korea's Naver Corp (KS:035420) rose nearly 8% on Monday after the internet company said NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) will acquire $1 billion of newly issued shares as part of a partnership to build an artificial intelligence data center. Shares rose over 8% to their highest level since June 22, sharply outperforming a 1% drop in the broader KOSPI. Track AI stocks and premium market-moving news with InvestingPro - now 60% off Naver said in a regulatory filing that the U.S. chipmaker will purchase the new shares to help finance the AI facility, marking the latest expansion of Nvidia's push to deepen its presence across South Korea's fast-growing AI infrastructure market. The funding will allow Naver to more than triple the size of the data center, which is being developed with Brookfield and will run on Nvidia's AI computing hardware. The investment is part of a broader partnership unveiled by Nvidia last week as the company seeks to accelerate AI infrastructure deployment beyond its traditional hyperscale cloud customers. Nvidia also announced an expanded alliance with SK Group, the country's second-largest conglomerate, to build more than two gigawatts of AI data center capacity across South Korea. The broader initiative is expected to generate more than $500 billion in business through purchases of memory chips and AI supercomputers. The announcements coincide with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's visit to Silicon Valley and come as Nvidia expands investments across the AI supply chain to secure access to critical components while driving broader adoption of its computing platform. Nvidia has invested billions of dollars across AI infrastructure in recent months, including funding for AI startups, semiconductor suppliers and data center projects, as Chief Executive Jensen Huang pushes for countries to develop sovereign AI capabilities and reduce reliance on a handful of hyperscale cloud providers.

Nvidia to Invest $1 Billion in Naver's AI Project -- Update

Nvidia will invest roughly $1 billion in South Korean internet company Naver to help finance an artificial-intelligence data center, deepening the companies' partnership in AI. The planned investment could pave the way for a broader multibillion-dollar push into AI infrastructure in South Korea. Naver and Nvidia said they are in talks with U.S. private-equity firm Brookfield to provide up to $9 billion in funding for the project. The three companies announced in a joint statement issued over the weekend at an AI conference in San Francisco that they plan to build gigawatt-scale, multi-tenant AI cloud infrastructure to support the next generation of AI companies in South Korea and the U.S. The statement said Brookfield entered into a nonbinding term sheet to fund up to $9 billion and that Naver will fund the remaining amounts to finance the project. Naver will raise about 1.481 trillion won, equivalent to $1.01 billion, by issuing new shares to Nvidia in an initial investment, the Korean company said in a regulatory filing Monday. Naver will issue 7.2 million new shares at 204,500 won each through a third-party allotment, with Nvidia as the sole subscriber. Nvidia would hold a 4.5% stake in Naver once the transaction is completed. The proceeds will help fund Naver's AI factory project, which includes an AI data center in South Korea and other computing infrastructure. Nvidia will supply graphics processing units for the data center, which is expected to have a capacity of 55 megawatts in the first half of 2027, 100 megawatts by the end of that year and 200 megawatts in 2028. The project will eventually expand into gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure, it added. Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang confirmed the three-way AI partnership over the weekend. "Together, Naver, Nvidia and Brookfield are building sovereign AI infrastructure at the scale needed to fuel Korea's startups and industries," Huang said in a joint statement released by Naver on Saturday, Seoul time. The partnership will combine Brookfield's global expertise in AI infrastructure investment, Naver's AI and data-center capabilities, and Nvidia's accelerated-computing platform to strengthen South Korea's AI ecosystem, said Sikander Rashid, Brookfield's global head of AI infrastructure. Last month, Nvidia struck a series of deals with South Korean technology companies, including Naver and SK Group, to build large-scale AI infrastructure in Asia. The chip maker is seeking to expand its data-center footprint and extend its AI ecosystem into robotics and other industrial sectors. Naver, which developed a homegrown large-language model, has played a central role in South Korea's efforts to advance sovereign AI. Separately, Naver said Monday that it will cancel 1.017 trillion won of treasury shares in August as part of efforts to boost shareholder returns. Naver's shares last rose 8.2% in Monday morning trading, trimming their year-to-date losses to 7.4%.

Nvidia to Invest About $1 Billion in Naver for AI Project

Nvidia will invest roughly $1 billion in South Korean internet company Naver to help finance an artificial-intelligence data center, strengthening their AI partnership. Naver will raise about 1.481 trillion, equivalent to $1.01 billion, by issuing new shares to Nvidia, the Korean company said in a regulatory filing Monday. The company will issue 7.2 million new shares at 204,500 won each via third-party allotment, with Nvidia serving as the sole subscriber. Proceeds will will help fund Naver's AI factory project, which aims to expand AI computing infrastructure, including an AI data center, in South Korea. Nvidia will supply graphics processing units for the AI data center, which is expected to have a capacity of 55 megawatts in the first half of 2027, 100 megawatts by the end of 2027 and 200 megawatts in 2028. Total investment in the project, which will include funding from additional investors, is expected to reach about $9 billion, Naver said. The project will eventually expand into gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure, it added.

NAVER Corporation, NVIDIA Corporation And Brookfield Asset Management Inc. Expand Korea?s National AI Factory Infrastructure Buildout

NAVER Corporation, NVIDIA Corporation and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. announced a proposed expansion of Korea's sovereign AI factory infrastructure, with planned investments that will grow the initial NVIDIA DSX AI factory deployment to 200 megawatts ? more than tripling the 55-megawatt buildout announced last month. NAVER Corporation intends to expand its deployment of NVIDIA Corporation AI infrastructure to 1 gigawatt. The expanded infrastructure will be built with the NVIDIA DSX platform at NAVER Corporation?s GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Sejong, South Korea. NVIDIA Corporation plans to invest $1 billion into NAVER Corporation. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. has entered into a nonbinding term sheet to fund up to $9 billion. NAVER Corporation will fund the remaining amounts to finance the project. NVIDIA Corporation?s planned investment is subject to customary closing conditions and NAVER Corporation finalizing at least $9 billion of committed financing for the project, separate from NVIDIA Corporation?s planned investment. The expanded infrastructure will provide Korea- and U.S.-based AI innovators with access to production-scale AI compute for building next-generation models, agents and AI-powered services. The partnership will combine Brookfield Asset Management Inc.?s global AI infrastructure investment capabilities, NAVER Corporation?s full-stack AI and data center operating expertise, and NVIDIA Corporation?s accelerated computing platform to advance Korea?s AI capabilities. The 200-megawatt AI factory is expected to feature advanced NVIDIA Corporation AI infrastructure including the NVIDIA Vera Rubin and NVIDIA Blackwell platforms. It intends to provide the compute, software and support needed to develop and deploy competitive AI models and applications at scale. As an NVIDIA Corporation Cloud Partner, NAVER Corporation provides deep expertise in operating hyperscale infrastructure powered by the full-stack NVIDIA Corporation AI platform. The proposed expansion builds on the June announcement in which NAVER Corporation committed to extending its GAK Sejong data center with NVIDIA DSX, with a long-term path to gigawatt-scale sovereign AI infrastructure to serve Korea?s enterprises, industries, government organizations and global AI cloud customers. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. has established one of the industry?s leading AI infrastructure investment platforms, with approximately $100 billion of assets under management across the AI infrastructure value chain including data centers, compute, semiconductor manufacturing and dedicated power generation. The planned NAVER Corporation investment will mark another significant milestone in Brookfield Asset Management Inc.?s strategic partnership with NVIDIA Corporation. Building on NVIDIA Corporation?s participation as a founding partner in the Brookfield Asset Management Inc. Global AI Infrastructure Program, the planned investment combines Brookfield Asset Management Inc.?s capital and AI infrastructure and power expertise with NVIDIA Corporation?s accelerated computing platform to support the deployment of large-scale AI factories. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. has been an active, long-term investor in Korea since establishing a presence in the country in 2014 and currently manages approximately $12 billion of assets across infrastructure, real estate and energy. The NVIDIA DSX platform provides an end-to-end, codesigned stack for AI factories ? spanning chips, systems, software, facilities and partner technologies ? purpose-built to minimize token cost and accelerate time to first production. NVIDIA DSX MaxLPS software maximizes token throughput per megawatt, while NVIDIA DSX OS provides lifecycle management, health automation, resiliency and multi-tenant AI factory management across the expanded infrastructure. The expanded infrastructure builds on NAVER Corporation and NVIDIA Corporation?s collaboration on open model development for agentic and physical AI. NAVER Corporation is advancing its HyperCLOVA X models to be based on NVIDIA Corporation Nemotron 3 Ultra open models with its proprietary data and training expertise. NAVER Corporation is also the first Korean company to join the NVIDIA Corporation Nemotron Coalition, contributing to open model development across pretraining, post-training and reinforcement learning. NAVER Corporation plans to launch an AI agent platform in Korea in the second half of the year, powered by NVIDIA Corporation Agent Toolkit software including NVIDIA Corporation NemoClaw blueprints. NAVER Corporation is also developing a Seoul World Model using proprietary urban street-view and spatial modeling data, built on NVIDIA Corporation Cosmos world foundation models.