K-AI Strengthens AI Sovereignty with Expansive NVIDIA Partnership and Infrastructure Expansion

Naver and NVIDIA Forge AI Alliance
1.48 Trillion Won Third-Party Allotment
Secures 13 Trillion Won from Brookfield
SK Group and Samsung SDS Expand in the AI Market

Major technology companies from Korea and the United States are joining forces for large-scale AI initiatives such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, and AI factories, thereby establishing a comprehensive collaborative framework to create new growth engines for the future. With the "San Francisco AI Summit" serving as a catalyst, collaboration between South Korean firms and NVIDIA, the key supplier of GPUs (graphics processing units) for AI factory operations, is taking concrete form. This has been analyzed as a major step toward solidifying an "AI alliance."

Naver to Build 200MW AI Factory with NVIDIA

On July 27, Naver announced that it has signed a strategic investment agreement with NVIDIA through a third-party paid-in capital increase, securing an investment worth 1 billion dollars (1.48 trillion won). In addition, Naver will raise funds via global investment firm Brookfield to secure GPU infrastructure and data centers valued at approximately 9 billion dollars (about 13.16 trillion won). Naver has selected Brookfield as its exclusive preferred negotiation partner and is in discussions for a formal agreement. This contract allows Naver to rapidly address the challenges of GPU supply and equipment procurement, which are central to the AI factory business.

NVIDIA's latest investment is a follow-up to the "gigawatt (GW)-scale global AI factory construction agreement" the two parties announced in June. This marks the first time in 22 years that Naver is conducting a third-party paid-in capital increase, and the first since its KOSPI listing in 2008. Through the 1 billion dollar investment, NVIDIA will acquire 4.5% of Naver's shares (7,241,564 common shares). Upon completion of the investment, NVIDIA is expected to become Naver's third-largest shareholder, following the National Pension Service and BlackRock.

On the 24th (local time), Chairman Lee Haejin and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang are seen shaking hands after signing a strategic investment agreement worth 1 billion dollars at NVIDIA headquarters in California, USA. Provided by Naver.

By ramping up collaboration on joint AI factory construction with NVIDIA, Naver aims to expand its operations beyond the domestic platform into Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Naver plans to use all funds raised from the paid-in capital increase on new business ventures related to AI factories. The scheduled annual investment amounts are approximately 5 billion won for this year, around 692 billion won for next year, and about 783.8 billion won for after 2028. Furthermore, through a preliminary agreement with global alternative investment firm Brookfield, Naver will secure the latest GPUs and data centers required to operate an AI factory with a capacity of several hundred megawatts (MW).

Naver is targeting revenue generation from its AI factory business beginning in 2027. Initially, operations will begin in the first half of 2027 with a 55MW AI factory at the "Each Sejong" data center, with plans to expand to 200MW in 2028 and eventually reach the 1GW level.

Naver CEO Choi Suyeon stated, "The investments from NVIDIA and Brookfield will serve as a significant turning point for Naver's future growth," adding, "We will swiftly attract customers for the AI factory and make this a catalyst for Naver to emerge as a major player in global AI infrastructure."

On the 24th (local time), after signing a strategic investment agreement between Naver and NVIDIA at the NVIDIA headquarters, (from the second left) Naver's Donghyun Koo, Head of Strategic Planning; Bongseok Yoo, Chief Revenue Officer; Heechul Kim, Chief Financial Officer; Suyeon Choi, CEO; Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA; Jaehyun Lee, Chairman of the Board at Naver; Madison Huang, Senior Director of NVIDIA; Yuwon Kim, CEO of Naver Cloud; and (third from the right) Jeonghoon Lee, CFO of Naver Cloud, were photographed together. Photo by Yonhap News.

Korea Emerges as a Key Player in the Global AI Supply Chain

The comprehensive AI collaboration between U.S. big tech firms, including NVIDIA, and Korean companies is being viewed as evidence of Korea's emergence as a pivotal force in the global AI supply chain. Analysts interpret the approximately 1,400 trillion won Korea-U.S. AI cooperation agreement announced concurrently with President Jae-myung Lee's "San Francisco AI Declaration" on the 24th (local time) as more than just a simple investment partnership, but rather as a declaration of intent for Korea to step up as a "global AI hub" and a core nation in the AI supply chain.

The SK Group is aggressively advancing construction of a 2GW-class AI cloud and AI factories in Korea through a comprehensive partnership with NVIDIA estimated at over 500 billion dollars. This AI cloud will be built on NVIDIA's DSX platform, and will implement the NVIDIA Vera Rubin accelerated computing system integrated with SK hynix's HBM4. SK Telecom and NVIDIA are expanding large-scale AI infrastructure investments to jointly address the demand for sovereign AI, physical AI, agentic AI, and enterprise AI services, both in Korea and the broader Asia-Pacific region.

Samsung SDS is entering into a strategic partnership with Anthropic to expand the enterprise AI market. The two companies plan to generate new business opportunities by jointly conducting marketing and Proof of Concept (PoC) projects in Korea's AI market, as well as forming joint ventures. They also intend to train applied AI engineers who will be responsible for building and operating Claude. Samsung SDS currently provides Claude Enterprise to approximately 70,000 employees across 20 Samsung affiliates, and the company plans to phase in its AX (AI Transformation) business for external customers by supporting them throughout the Claude introduction and adoption process.

Junhee Lee, CEO of Samsung SDS, commented, "This strategic collaboration marks a starting point to jointly lead growth in the domestic AI market by combining Anthropic's AI technology and Samsung SDS's industry-specific digital innovation experience," adding, "Leveraging the strengths of both companies, we will support our customers' AI transformation and create new business value through reliable AI solutions."

On the 24th (local time), Samsung SDS President Junhee Lee and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei posed for a commemorative photo after signing a strategic partnership agreement (SPA) at the AI Summit held at The Midway in San Francisco, USA, with President Jae-myung Lee in attendance. On the right is Samsung Electronics Chairman Jeyong Lee. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.