South Korea's race to build AI data centers has entered a new phase of gigawatt-scale investment.
Naver is moving to build a global AI factory network backed by $10 billion from Nvidia and Brookfield, while SK Telecom is pursuing gigawatt-scale AI data center expansion with Nvidia and Anthropic. Samsung SDS, meanwhile, is deepening its enterprise AI cooperation with Anthropic — part of a broader push by South Korean IT companies to build AI infrastructure and ecosystems in partnership with global firms.
Naver founder and board chairman Lee Hae-jin announced Friday (local time) at an AI-related event in San Francisco that the company would receive $10 billion from Nvidia and global alternative asset manager Brookfield, according to Yonhap and other reports Saturday.
"Nvidia and Brookfield have decided to invest a large sum of $10 billion in Naver," Lee said. "This will be a turning point for Naver to leap to a new stage."
He also outlined plans to use the investment as a springboard to expand Naver's AI and data center business into global markets.
"The challenge Naver has faced was scaling up the knowledge and operational know-how we have accumulated," Lee said. "The capital, global brand and network of both companies will be a great opportunity to scale up Naver's expertise."
The partnership combines Naver's data center design and operational technology, AI models and cloud service capabilities to expand its global AI infrastructure business.
Naver plans to secure $1 billion in strategic investment from Nvidia to expand GPU supply and technology cooperation, and up to $9 billion from Brookfield to build global AI factories.
With Brookfield, Naver agreed to jointly develop stable infrastructure and supply chains — including data centers, power and cooling facilities — needed to operate gigawatt-scale AI factories.
At the same event, Lee described how Naver has spent the past 30 years developing and operating a wide range of internet services — including search, commerce, content and cloud — while navigating competition between US and Chinese tech giants.
He said Naver had designed and built its own data centers to keep those services running reliably, accumulating the related technology and operational experience along the way.
Naver is currently pursuing an AI factory partnership with Nvidia spanning AI computing infrastructure, AI models and enterprise services.
Brookfield is a global asset manager with strong capabilities in large-scale infrastructure investment, including data centers and energy. It is expected to provide the capital and physical infrastructure needed for Naver's AI infrastructure expansion.
Lee also raised concerns about the concentration of AI technology and services among a handful of global tech giants.
"The internet world Naver envisions is not one where the internet and AI are dominated and controlled by one or two groups," he said. "To preserve the diversity of the world, multiple AIs must be able to emerge and operate for each country, group and individual."
He added that Naver would "develop and research more technology through this new growth opportunity" and pledged to "work with companies around the world that share the same vision to build a world where diverse AIs coexist."
SK Telecom and Samsung SDS are also joining forces with global AI companies to expand domestic AI infrastructure and enterprise AI businesses.
South Korean companies and global tech giants agreed to pursue AI data center investment cooperation totaling about 5GW of power capacity and roughly 2 million Nvidia B200 GPUs.
SK Telecom agreed with Nvidia to build and expand AI data centers of up to 2GW, and secured priority allocation of Nvidia's latest GPU system, Vera Rubin.
With Anthropic, SK Telecom will pursue investment and cooperation on a domestic gigawatt-scale AI data center project.
SK Telecom also plans to expand its cooperation with Amazon Web Services beyond the ongoing Ulsan AI data center project to other major domestic locations, securing gigawatt-scale AI computing capacity.
Samsung SDS signed a strategic partnership with Anthropic to jointly develop new markets including enterprise AI, and agreed to cooperate on training AI engineers.
Cheong Wa Dae said the partnerships between South Korean companies and US tech giants had laid the groundwork for concrete investment and cooperation with global firms across three core mega-project areas: semiconductors, AI data centers and physical AI.
"The government and the private sector will continue to give their all to deliver visible results from these mega projects at the earliest possible time," said Kim Yong-beom, Cheong Wa Dae policy chief.
arete@heraldcorp.com
