Betting on South Korean AI Infrastructure! Nvidia makes a $1 billion equity investment, becoming the third largest shareholder of NAVER

Author | Long Yue

      Editor | Hard AI

Nvidia's move in South Korea’s AI infrastructure is evolving from Jensen Huang’s promises at the dinner table to actual equity ties in hard currency.

On July 27, NAVER announced that through a third-party private placement, it had signed an investment agreement with Nvidia, whereby Nvidia will acquire a 4.5% stake in NAVER for $1 billion (approximately 1.48 trillion KRW), becoming its third largest shareholder. At the same time, NAVER also signed a preparatory contract with global asset management firm Brookfield for up to $9 billion in AI factory financing for the expansion of its Sejong City data center.

This marks the first time Nvidia has entered a local internet platform in a core Asian AI market as a strategic shareholder—indicating the computing power giant is no longer content with just chip delivery, but is embedding its own balance sheet directly into the downstream AI infrastructure expansion track.

From Supplying GPUs to 4.5% Equity: Nvidia’s “Anchoring” Move in Korea’s Ecosystem

Third-party private placements are typically used to introduce strategic partners or quickly inject capital. By opting for this method to bring in Nvidia, NAVER aims to elevate their relationship from a simple computing power buyer-seller dynamic to a mutually beneficial partnership on the equity level.

On June 8, Jensen Huang visited the NAVER 1784 headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and met with NAVER’s chairman Lee Hae-jin. Less than two months later, this $1 billion strategic investment was completed, demonstrating Nvidia’s urgency to accelerate its transition from "shovel seller" to "partner" in the South Korean AI ecosystem.

Bundled Cancellation of KRW Trillion in Treasury Shares: A Two-Way Signal for Control

Alongside welcoming Nvidia as its third largest shareholder, NAVER announced it will cancel approximately 4.9 million of its own shares worth about KRW 1 trillion on August 3 to enhance shareholder value. Executed in the context of potential equity dilution concerns following the private placement, this move serves as a signal to the market that the management team is keeping a firm grip on capital control.

For Nvidia, share cancellation means NAVER’s total share capital will shrink, which, in the long run, helps boost earnings per share and asset quality, indirectly increasing the value of its 4.5% equity stake.

Brookfield’s $9 Billion Preparatory Agreement: The Key Piece in AI Factory Financing

The preparatory agreement signed by NAVER and Brookfield sets a maximum external financing cap of $9 billion for the AI factory construction project. According to the financing structure, Brookfield will cover up to this amount while NAVER will arrange the rest on its own; the exact amount of NAVER’s direct investment has not yet been determined.

This funding is expected to be fully invested in the AI factory expansion at the Sejong City data center known as "Gak Sejong." With exponential growth in the demand for training and inference of large models, the computing density and scale of data centers have become core competitive barriers for AI infrastructure. Brookfield's participation introduces a vital external capital leverage to this asset-heavy project for NAVER.

Korea as a Pivotal Point in the Global AI Infrastructure Plan

As the operator of Nvidia’s "Global AI Infrastructure Plan," Brookfield has brought NAVER’s AI factory expansion project directly into its global investment portfolio. This is not an isolated case—Nvidia’s recent activities in Korea have been frequent: jointly launching an AI research center with KAIST, signing a $1.5 billion chip packaging deal with Amkor, and now this dual-track advancement of NAVER’s equity and infrastructure financing. Korea is rapidly becoming one of the densest regions for Nvidia’s Asian AI infrastructure deployment.

For capital markets, NAVER’s AI transformation is now endorsed by both a computing power giant and a top asset management firm. Whether Nvidia can replicate this "equity investment + infrastructure financing" formula in other regions, following the Korean model, will be a key dimension to monitor as it expands its ecosystem.