NVIDIA in the United States will become Naver’s third-largest shareholder through an equity acquisition. NVIDIA has also agreed to provide financial guarantees of USD 250 billion (approximately KRW 345 trillion) for the construction of OpenAI’s hyperscale data center in the United States. There is a growing view that NVIDIA’s strategy of leveraging its massive financial resources to cultivate “future customers” that will purchase its own graphic processing units (GPUs) could further strengthen the cohesion of the Korea-U.S. “artificial intelligence (AI) alliance.”

Naver announced on the 27th that it has attracted AI infrastructure investment and supply agreements totaling USD 10 billion (approximately KRW 14.6 trillion), comprising USD 1 billion from NVIDIA and USD 9 billion from global alternative investment firm Brookfield. NVIDIA will participate in a third-party paid-in capital increase and acquire a 4.5% stake in Naver. Based on the end of last year, this makes it the third-largest shareholder after the National Pension Service (9.25%) and BlackRock (6.12%), and gives it a larger stake than founder and board chairman Lee Hae-jin (3.91%). In consideration of share dilution from the capital increase, Naver has decided to cancel its own shares worth about KRW 1 trillion on 3 August. Brookfield will participate by committing USD 9 billion to pre-secure volumes of the latest GPUs and data centers. Actual fund execution is expected to take place when Naver activates the infrastructure and signs the main contracts.

NVIDIA’s move to become a strategic investor in Naver through an equity investment is interpreted as an attempt not only to “cultivate future customers” but also to build a cooperative relationship within the AI ecosystem. It is also seen as having a containment effect against a rising China centered on Huawei. China is already forming an AI ecosystem at home through mutual investments. The Chinese government and big tech firms (such as Alibaba) are snapping up Chinese semiconductors, including those from Huawei, to build data centers and establish AI infrastructure, while AI companies (such as Moonshot) use this AI infrastructure on a rental basis to pursue technology development. Backed by funding from Chinese big tech and the Chinese government, an “anti-NVIDIA” bloc is expanding.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in the U.S., citing a Morgan Stanley report, reported that “China’s dependence on foreign AI chips declined from 90% in 2021 to below 60% last year,” adding that “if the rollout of Huawei’s new chips accelerates, this dependence will fall to 25% within five years.”

In response, NVIDIA is expanding its own camp by investing not only in AI model developers such as Naver, OpenAI, and Anthropic, but also in emerging cloud companies that rent out GPUs. It is an NVIDIA-centric ecosystem in which NVIDIA provides capital and these companies purchase NVIDIA chips. The WSJ reported on the 26th (local time) that NVIDIA is reviewing a payment guarantee of USD 250 billion to support OpenAI’s lease of a 10 GW-class data center in Ohio, USA. Under this structure, NVIDIA provides its own credit on behalf of OpenAI. U.S. company AMD is also strengthening cooperation, for example by investing in Anthropic in a manner similar to NVIDIA.

The Korea-U.S. AI ecosystem alliance is also taking concrete shape. At the “San Francisco AI Summit” held on the 24th (local time), attended by President Lee Jae-myung, Samsung, SK, and others pledged investment and cooperation in the United States worth USD 950 billion solely in the semiconductor sector.

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