Domestic information technology (IT) companies are expanding AI infrastructure such as data centers together with global big tech firms through the “AI Summit” in San Francisco. Naver and SK Telecom have decided to build or expand gigawatt (GW)-class AI data centers in partnership with Nvidia and others. Samsung SDS plans to support domestic companies’ AI adoption in collaboration with Anthropic.

Naver, SK Telecom, Samsung SDS and others on the 24th (local time) successively announced these AI infrastructure cooperation plans at the AI Summit held in San Francisco, United States. The total scale of AI data center investment cooperation that domestic companies agreed to pursue jointly with global big tech firms at this summit is about 5 GW in terms of power capacity, sufficient to run approximately 2 million Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs).

Naver has agreed with Nvidia and global asset manager Brookfield to undertake an AI infrastructure project worth USD 10 billion (about KRW 14.6 trillion). Brookfield will raise up to USD 9 billion, and Nvidia will invest USD 1 billion. As a first step, Naver will increase the “AI Factory,” which aggregates large-scale GPUs to develop and operate AI models and services, at its Sejong data center “Gak Sejong” from the current 55 MW (megawatts) to 200 MW.

Lee Hae-jin, chairman of the Naver board of directors, said, “Nvidia and Brookfield have decided to invest the sizable amount of USD 10 billion in Naver,” adding, “The brands and networks of the two companies will be a major opportunity to scale up Naver’s know-how.”

SK Telecom has decided with Nvidia to build an AI Factory in Korea with a capacity of up to 2 GW. Based on Nvidia’s AI data center design platform “DSX,” SK Telecom plans to introduce Vera Rubin equipped with SK hynix’s sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM4) and operate a high-performance AI Factory starting in 2027. SK Telecom has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Anthropic to build a GW-class AI data center in Korea.

Samsung SDS has focused on linking AI infrastructure to companies’ actual business operations. It has entered into a strategic partnership with Anthropic to jointly develop AI services for domestic enterprises using the AI model “Claude.”

Lee Sung-yeop, professor at Korea University Graduate School of Management of Technology, said, “This cooperation shows that Korea has competitiveness as an AI infrastructure hub beyond being just a semiconductor supplier,” adding, “The center of gravity in global AI competition is also shifting from model performance rivalry to competition in actually delivering services after securing AI infrastructure.”

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