Nvidia to invest $1 billion in Naver to expand South Korean AI data centers

Nvidia to invest $1 billion in Naver to expand South Korean AI data centers

Nvidia will invest $1 billion in Naver Corp to support the expansion of artificial intelligence data center infrastructure in South Korea. The deal, announced during South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's visit to the AI Summit in San Francisco, focuses on scaling the GAK Sejong AI data center.

Shares of the South Korean internet and cloud services provider surged more than 10% on Monday following the news. In Seoul, Naver was trading at 222,500 KRW, or $151.76, reflecting a 7.23% increase at the time of reporting.

Financing and Ownership

The investment will be executed through the purchase of 7.2 million newly issued shares. According to a regulatory filing from Naver, Nvidia will pay 204,500 won per share, which represents a 1% discount to the closing price on Friday. This transaction will grant Nvidia a 4.5% ownership stake, making it one of Naver's largest shareholders.

As of the end of 2025, the National Pension Service of South Korea held the top position with a 9.25% stake, followed by BlackRock Fund Advisors at 6.12%.

The broader infrastructure project is valued at up to $10 billion. While Nvidia provides the $1 billion equity investment, global investment firm Brookfield Asset Management Ltd will act as the capital partner, contributing up to $9 billion to fund the expansion.

Technical Specifications and Scale

The GAK Sejong facility is slated to grow from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts of capacity by 2028. This expansion will utilize Nvidia's Blackwell and Vera Rubin next-generation AI chip platforms to provide production-scale computing for government organizations, startups, and enterprises.

This initiative builds upon a strategic partnership established in June. At that time, Naver and Nvidia agreed to develop gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure to meet the demand for sovereign AI in Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region. Naver noted that a one-gigawatt data center would offer roughly four times the maximum capacity of the current GAK Sejong hyperscale facility, allowing for the use of hundreds of thousands of latest-generation GPUs.

Under the updated partnership structure, Naver clarified that Nvidia will serve as the supplier of GPUs rather than a partner that shares business risks and revenue.

Strategic Context in South Korea

The move is part of a wider push by Nvidia to embed itself in the South Korean AI ecosystem. In June, Nvidia also established partnerships with Doosan, SK Telecom, and SK Hynix. Beyond the Naver deal, Nvidia is teaming with SK Group to build more than 2 gigawatts of AI data centers on the Korean Peninsula.

Developing closer ties with SK is strategically significant for Nvidia's supply chain. SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics Co. Are the primary providers of high-bandwidth memory chips, components that currently face shortages due to the global surge in data center construction.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has advocated for countries to maintain control over their own AI infrastructure through sovereign AI initiatives, which allows the chipmaker to expand its customer base beyond the major cloud providers in the United States.

Global Investment Strategy

Nvidia's activity in South Korea mirrors a global pattern of aggressive investment in the AI supply chain, including stakes in Anthropic and OpenAI.

The company is also reportedly engaged in discussions to provide a financing guarantee of up to $250 billion to help OpenAI lease a 10-gigawatt, $500 billion data center hub in Ohio overseen by SoftBank Group Corp. These talks, which are in early stages, would see Nvidia supporting the infrastructure that ultimately drives demand for its own hardware.

The GAK Sejong expansion is expected to reach completion in 2028.