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Naver has secured an investment of 10 billion dollars (approximately 14.6 trillion Korean won) from NVIDIA and global asset management firm Brookfield. Announced at a gathering of South Korean and U.S. AI industry leaders during President Lee Jae Myung’s visit to the U.S., Naver will use the funds to build a gigawatt (GW)-class ‘AI Factory’ and expand its global AI infrastructure business.
Lee Hae-jin, Naver’s founder and board chairman, stated at the ‘San Francisco AI Summit’ held in San Francisco on the 24th, “NVIDIA and Brookfield have invested a significant amount of 10 billion dollars in Naver,” adding, “This will be a turning point for Naver to leap to a new stage.” Hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the event saw President Lee Jae Myung attend and announce the ‘San Francisco AI Declaration,’ with key figures from both countries including NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won in attendance.
Chairman Lee explained that while Naver has developed and operated internet services such as search, commerce, and cloud between U.S. and Chinese big tech companies over the past 30 years, directly designing and building data centers, there were limitations in scaling the accumulated technology and expertise globally. He stated, “The capital from the two companies, along with their global brands and networks, will present a significant opportunity to scale up Naver’s expertise.”
The investment is expected to be directed toward Naver’s ongoing AI Factory project with NVIDIA. The AI Factory is a facility that combines AI models and cloud technology with data centers equipped with large-scale graphics processing unit (GPU) servers and power/cooling infrastructure to supply the computational power needed for AI training and inference. Naver plans to start operating a 55-megawatt (MW) AI Factory in the first half of next year, expand to 200 MW by 2028, and ultimately establish a 1-gigawatt (GW)-class infrastructure.
Brookfield, a Canadian asset management firm with over 1 trillion dollars in assets under management, launched an AI infrastructure investment program of up to 100 billion dollars with NVIDIA and others in November last year. Earlier this week, Chairman Lee and Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon visited Brookfield’s headquarters in Toronto, Canada, to finalize investment discussions.
On this day, Chairman Lee also expressed caution against the concentration of AI leadership in a few big tech companies. He stated, “The world Naver envisions is not one where the internet and AI are dominated and controlled by a single or few groups,” adding, “We will collaborate with global companies that share the same vision to create a world where diverse AI coexist.”
[https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2026/07/25/3CL2MMN7JREC3BOA6ECOIWIRFU/](https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2026/07/25/3CL2MMN7JREC3BOA6ECOIWIRFU/)