Portal Giant Secures $10B Investment to Accelerate Global AI Factory Initiative

Naver has secured a 14.7 trillion won investment as it transitions into a global AI enterprise. The move marks a significant milestone for the web portal giant as it makes a full-fledged entry into the global AI market. On July 24, 2026 (local time), at the 'AI Summit' in San Francisco, USA, hosted by President Lee Jae-myung, Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin announced that the company had attracted major investments from Nvidia and Brookfield. Later that day, Naver executives met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the company's headquarters to discuss plans to expand its gigawatt (GW)-scale AI factory.

Starting with the operation of a 55MW AI factory in the first half of next year, Naver plans to expand its capacity to 200MW by 2028, ultimately completing a 1GW-scale infrastructure. Consequently, the company's data centers—previously dedicated to internal services—will be transformed into a profitable business providing AI computing resources and cloud services to external clients, accelerating its global market expansion which had previously been constrained by a lack of capital and overseas networks.

Naver's target market for its global business is expected to expand beyond foreign corporations to include sovereign nations aiming to build their own independent AI ecosystems. Moving beyond the performance competition of general-purpose AI models, the company will focus on the 'sovereign AI' market—ensuring each nation's language, culture, regulations, and data sovereignty. This will solidify its global infrastructure strategy, emphasizing diversity and independence from any single Big Tech firm or country.