Nvidia's $1 billion bet on Naver's data center buildout signals a major push for sovereign AI infrastructure in South Korea.
Nvidia is writing a billion-dollar check, and the market noticed immediately. Shares of Naver, South Korea’s dominant internet company, jumped more than 10% on July 27, 2026, after Nvidia announced plans to acquire newly issued Naver shares worth $1 billion at 204,500 won apiece, a price reflecting a 1% discount to the prior close.
What the deal actually involves #
Naver’s GAK Sejong AI facility, currently operating at 55 MW of capacity, is slated to scale to 200 MW by 2028. That is nearly a fourfold expansion, powered by Nvidia’s DSX platform and its latest GPU hardware.
Layered on top of Nvidia’s equity investment, Brookfield Asset Management has committed up to $9 billion in project financing to support the broader expansion. Nvidia is also separately collaborating with SK Group on more than 2 GW of AI data center capacity across South Korea.
Why Naver, and why now #
Naver operates South Korea’s dominant search engine, a major cloud platform, and an increasingly ambitious financial services arm through Naver Financial. In November 2025, Naver Financial announced a $10.3 billion stock-swap deal to acquire Dunamu, the parent company of Upbit, which is South Korea’s largest crypto exchange. The acquisition is still pending, but if it closes, Naver becomes a rare entity: a hyperscale AI infrastructure operator with direct exposure to the country’s leading digital asset trading platform.
What this means for investors and the broader market #
For Naver shareholders, the Nvidia deal validates the company’s AI infrastructure strategy, provides capital via shares issued at a narrow discount, and anchors a long-term customer relationship. The 10% single-session gain reflects all of that.
If Naver completes the Dunamu acquisition, any institutional capital flowing into Naver shares effectively gains indirect exposure to South Korea’s crypto trading volume through Upbit. The Brookfield $9 billion financing commitment implies a level of projected revenue certainty from AI compute demand that aligns with what hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have been signaling through their own multi-year capital expenditure plans.
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