Naver founder and board chair Lee Hae-jin, CEO Choi Soo-yeon, and other members of Naver’s management will visit the Canadian headquarters of global alternative asset manager Brookfield. Analysts say discussions on attracting investments on the scale of several trillion KRW, needed for building an artificial intelligence (AI) factory, are entering full swing.

According to the information technology (IT) industry on the 20th, Chair Lee and CEO Choi are scheduled to visit Brookfield’s headquarters in Toronto, Canada, this week. Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Kim Hee-chul and key executives from related affiliates are also reportedly accompanying them. As the founder, CEO, and chief financial officer are moving together, there is market speculation that they may discuss specific investment structures and sizes.

Through the “Republic of Korea Grand Leap: Three Mega Projects National Briefing,” Naver previously announced a plan to build a 1-gigawatt (GW) AI factory (AIDC). The AI factory Naver is pursuing is a large-scale computing facility that combines AI models and cloud technology with graphics processing unit (GPU) servers, data centers, and power and cooling facilities. As AI competition expands beyond model development into a battle to secure infrastructure such as data centers and power, the importance of large-scale fundraising is also growing. Given that Brookfield is an alternative asset manager with more than USD 1 trillion in assets under management and a strong track record in real-asset infrastructure investments such as data centers and energy, there is talk that it could participate through co-investment or project financing (PF).

Whereas Naver has previously pushed cooperation with Nvidia focused on GPUs, servers, and AI technology, analysts say Brookfield could take on capital, data centers, power, and other physical infrastructure. Naver stated, “We cannot confirm any details related to this matter.”

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