Nvidia, Brookfield Back Naver's $10B AI Factory Expansion in South Korea
The deal triples Naver's data center capacity by 2028 as nations race to build sovereign AI infrastructure.
Nvidia and Brookfield have committed approximately $10 billion to expand Naver's AI factory infrastructure in South Korea, cementing the country's push for sovereign AI compute capacity independent of U.S. hyperscalers.
The Deal Structure
Nvidia will invest $1 billion in Naver through a third-party allotment capital increase, acquiring a 4.5% equity stake comprising 7,241,564 common shares. Brookfield has signed a nonbinding term sheet to provide up to $9 billion as the exclusive capital partner. Naver will fund the remaining amount beyond the two partners' contributions.
The announcement came July 24-25, 2026, at the K-AI Summit in San Francisco, where the three companies outlined plans to scale Naver's GAK Sejong data center from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts by 2028 — more than tripling its current capacity.
DSX Architecture at Scale
The expanded infrastructure will be built on Nvidia's DSX (Data Center Scale) reference design platform, creating a multi-tenant AI cloud that allows multiple organizations to access dedicated compute resources without relying on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.
This architecture positions Naver as South Korea's primary domestic operator for national-scale AI compute, giving local enterprises and research institutions an alternative to foreign cloud providers for training and deploying large language models.
Sovereign AI Momentum
The partnership reflects a broader global trend toward sovereign AI — nations building and controlling their own AI infrastructure rather than depending on U.S. tech giants. Similar initiatives have emerged in the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia as governments recognize AI compute as critical national infrastructure.
For Nvidia, the deal validates its AI Factory model as a blueprint for country-level deployments while deepening its footprint in the Asian market. The chipmaker has faced increasing scrutiny over its dominance in AI accelerators, and partnerships like this one help cement long-term relationships with regional operators.
Competitive Implications
Naver's expansion directly challenges U.S. hyperscalers in South Korea, one of the world's most connected nations with a robust domestic tech sector. By securing both hardware (via Nvidia) and capital (via Brookfield), Naver gains resources to compete on infrastructure scale rather than just software and services.
The 200-megawatt target by 2028 would place GAK Sejong among the largest AI-dedicated data centers globally, though it remains smaller than the multi-gigawatt campuses planned by Microsoft and Google.
Brookfield's involvement signals institutional investor confidence in sovereign AI as an asset class. The infrastructure giant has increasingly targeted data center investments as AI workloads drive unprecedented demand for power-dense facilities.
What Comes Next
The nonbinding nature of Brookfield's term sheet means final financing agreements remain pending. Naver must also navigate regulatory approvals for Nvidia's equity stake and secure power commitments to support the tripling of capacity at the Sejong site.
If executed as announced, the project would mark one of the largest foreign investments in South Korea's digital infrastructure and set a precedent for how mid-sized economies can build competitive AI capacity without ceding control to U.S. cloud providers.