Naver, Nvidia Forge Partnership to Build Gigawatt-Scale AI Factory

55MW launch in 2027, with expansion toward gigawatt scale

Built with Nvidia’s DSX platform and related technologies

AI infrastructure alliance to target Asia, the Middle East and Europe

Naver said it has formed an integrated partnership with Nvidia to build a gigawatt-scale global AI factory. The alliance goes beyond a simple technology partnership, spanning the full value chain from demand generation to capital cooperation.

Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin and Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang met on June 8 at Naver’s 1784 headquarters to discuss a detailed business roadmap and specific cooperation plans for a joint push into global markets, the company said. The two sides have already agreed to pursue leadership in the AI infrastructure ecosystem not only in Asia-Pacific but also in Europe and the Middle East.

Naver will take part in the partnership as a key global partner, sharing responsibility for both returns and risk. It plans to begin operating a 55MW AI factory in 2027, expand to 100MW later that year and then to 200MW in 2028, with the ultimate goal of building a gigawatt-scale facility. At 1GW, the project would be about four times the maximum capacity of Gak Sejong, Naver’s largest hyperscale data center in South Korea, and could house hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s latest GPUs at the same time.

The companies also plan to deepen technology cooperation. Naver’s experience building and operating large in-house GPU clusters, along with its hyperscale data-center expertise, will be combined with Nvidia’s next-generation high-performance infrastructure platform, DSX. The aim is to maximize data-center operating efficiency and improve project economics.

The partnership will also extend to spatial intelligence. That includes building a Seoul World Model using Naver’s proprietary spatial modeling and street-view data on top of Nvidia’s world foundation model, Cosmos. Naver recently joined the Nvidia Nemotron alliance, a group of 12 global AI companies including Cursor, Mistral AI and Perplexity, becoming the first South Korean company to do so. The company said it will combine the alliance’s joint technology development with its own data and training expertise to enhance HyperCLOVA X and speed efforts to broaden its global applicability.

“This alliance is very encouraging because it allows us to present a concrete alternative that can help regions and countries around the world build their own sovereign AI capabilities,” Lee said. He added that the partnership is meaningful because it gives Naver’s technology and infrastructure strengths an opportunity to take a further step into global markets.

Hong Min-seong, Hankyung.com reporter mshong@hankyung.com