SemiconductorsBRIEF

NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield Expand Korea's AI Factory Buildout to 200 Megawatts

林紀旭 James LinEditor-in-Chief
Published · Updated
According to a joint announcement posted on NVIDIA's newsroom, NAVER (韓國) (NAVER Corp), NVIDIA and Brookfield plan to expand Korea's sovereign AI factory deployment to 200 megawatts, more than tripling the 55-megawatt buildout announced a month earlier, with NAVER targeting 1 gigawatt long term. NVIDIA plans to invest $1 billion in NAVER, while Brookfield has signed a nonbinding term sheet to fund up to $9 billion.

What is the scale, location and timeline of NAVER's AI factory expansion?

According to a statement published on NVIDIA's newsroom, NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield announced a proposed expansion of Korea's sovereign AI factory infrastructure that would grow the initial NVIDIA DSX AI factory deployment to 200 megawatts — "more than tripling the 55-megawatt buildout announced last month," the companies said (E1, E2). Looking further out, NAVER said it "intends to expand its deployment of NVIDIA AI infrastructure to 1 gigawatt" (E3).

The expanded infrastructure will be built with the NVIDIA DSX platform at NAVER's GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Sejong, South Korea, per the announcement (E5). The companies also framed the news as a follow-on to an earlier commitment: "Today's proposed expansion builds on the June announcement in which NAVER committed to extending its GAK Sejong data center with NVIDIA DSX, with a long-term path to gigawatt-scale sovereign AI infrastructure to serve Korea's enterprises, industries, government organizations and global AI cloud customers," the release stated (E13).

MilestoneCapacity/TargetTiming
Prior buildout55 megawattsAnnounced one month earlier
Newly announced expansion200 megawattsAnnounced with this release
NAVER's stated long-term target1 gigawattNo date specified

What financing and investment commitments back the project?

The announcement outlines three separate but linked financing pieces. NVIDIA said it "plans to invest $1 billion into NAVER Corp" (E6). Separately, Brookfield "has entered into a nonbinding term sheet to fund up to $9 billion," according to the release (E7).

NVIDIA's own investment is conditional: the companies stated that "NVIDIA's planned investment is subject to customary closing conditions and NAVER finalizing at least $9 billion of committed financing for the project, separate from NVIDIA's planned investment" (E8).

Financing commitmentAmountSource of commitment
NVIDIA investment in NAVER Corp$1 billionNVIDIA
Brookfield nonbinding funding term sheetUp to $9 billionBrookfield
NAVER's required project financing (condition for NVIDIA's investment)At least $9 billionNAVER

When was this announced, and what strategic significance did the companies attach to it?

Per the release, the expansion was "announced during Korea President Jae Myung Lee's AI Summit visit to San Francisco," and the companies described the planned 200-megawatt expansion as marking "a significant acceleration of Korea's national AI ambitions" (E4).

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang was quoted in the announcement saying, "AI factories are the infrastructure nations need to compete and innovate in the intelligence era" (E11).

What roles do NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield play, and what is each company's background?

According to the release, NAVER founder and chairman Haejin Lee said, "NVIDIA's planned strategic investment and our infrastructure supply agreement with Brookfield have propelled NAVER's vision for the AI factory business into a robust execution phase" (E9).

Brookfield's global head of AI infrastructure, Sikander Rashid, was quoted saying the partnership "will combine Brookfield's global AI infrastructure investment capabilities, NAVER's full-stack AI and data center operating expertise, and NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform to advance Korea's AI capabilities" (E10).

The announcement also detailed Brookfield's existing footprint: the firm has built what the release calls "one of the industry's leading AI infrastructure investment platforms," with approximately $100 billion of assets under management across data centers, compute, semiconductor manufacturing and dedicated power generation (E14). In Korea specifically, Brookfield "has been an active, long-term investor" since establishing a presence in the country in 2014 and currently manages approximately $12 billion of assets across infrastructure, real estate and energy, according to the release (E15).

Brookfield metricValue
Global AI infrastructure AUM~$100 billion
Korea AUM (since 2014)~$12 billion

What technology platforms will power the 200-megawatt AI factory?

The companies said the 200-megawatt AI factory "is expected to feature advanced NVIDIA AI infrastructure including the NVIDIA Vera Rubin and NVIDIA Blackwell platforms" (E12).

What software and application-layer plans is NAVER pursuing alongside the infrastructure buildout?

Beyond the physical buildout, the release described related moves in NAVER's model and application strategy. NAVER "is advancing its HyperCLOVA X models to be based on NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra open models with its proprietary data and training expertise," the companies said (E16). The release also noted that NAVER "is also the first Korean company to join the NVIDIA Nemotron Coalition, contributing to open model development across pretraining, post-training and reinforcement learning" (E17).

On applications, NAVER "plans to launch an AI agent platform in Korea in the second half of the year, powered by NVIDIA Agent Toolkit software including NVIDIA NemoClaw blueprints," according to the announcement (E18).

What this means

The figures disclosed in the announcement show a layered financing structure: NVIDIA's $1 billion investment in NAVER Corp is explicitly conditioned on NAVER separately securing at least $9 billion in project financing (E8) — a threshold that matches the size of Brookfield's own nonbinding $9 billion funding term sheet (E7). Read together, the capacity figures also trace an escalation: the 55-megawatt buildout announced a month earlier (E2) was expanded to 200 megawatts in this release (E1), a figure the companies describe as more than tripling the prior plan, while NAVER's stated 1-gigawatt long-term target (E3) is five times the newly announced 200-megawatt figure. The announcement pairs this infrastructure scale-up with parallel software moves — HyperCLOVA X's shift onto NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra, NAVER's Nemotron Coalition membership, and a planned second-half AI agent platform launch (E16, E17, E18) — positioning the GAK Sejong buildout as infrastructure for NAVER's own model and application roadmap rather than capacity alone.

📊 Evidence

FAQ

How much is NVIDIA investing in NAVER Corp?

According to the announcement, NVIDIA plans to invest $1 billion into NAVER Corp, subject to customary closing conditions and NAVER finalizing at least $9 billion of separate project financing.

How much has Brookfield committed to the project?

Brookfield has entered into a nonbinding term sheet to fund up to $9 billion, per the release.

Where will the expanded AI factory be built?

The expanded infrastructure will be built with the NVIDIA DSX platform at NAVER's GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Sejong, South Korea.

When and where was the expansion announced?

It was announced during Korea President Jae Myung Lee's AI Summit visit to San Francisco, according to the release.

📎 Sources

  1. nvidianews.nvidia.com
林紀旭 James LinEditor-in-Chief

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