Naver Rises 9.2% as Nvidia AI Factory Plan Bucks Korea Market Rout

Naver Corp. was the only gainer among the Kospi’s 30 largest stocks by market capitalization on June 8, even as the benchmark index plunged more than 8% in a selloff fueled by a global semiconductor rout. Investors focused on new growth prospects after the company unveiled plans with Nvidia Corp. to build hyperscale artificial intelligence infrastructure during Jensen Huang’s visit to South Korea.

The Kospi closed at 7,484.41, down 676.18 points, or 8.29%, from the previous session, according to the Korea Exchange. It was the index’s second-largest daily drop this year. The Kosdaq also fell more than 8%, and trading on both markets was briefly halted after circuit breakers were triggered.

Large-cap stocks fell across the board. Samsung Electronics Co. lost 10.18%, SK Hynix Inc. dropped 7.68% and Hyundai Motor Co. slid 8.71%. SK Telecom Co., which took part in a morning briefing with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, surged intraday but finished with a gain of just 0.28%.

Naver, by contrast, rose 23,500 won, or 9.2%, to close at 279,000 won. The stock climbed as high as 294,000 won during the session.

Huang signaled a willingness to work not only with Naver but also with several major South Korean companies. He announced plans to jointly develop next-generation memory with SK Hynix and disclosed cooperation with SK Telecom on AI factories. He also mentioned a physical AI partnership with Hyundai Motor and was reported to have held a private meeting later in the day with Samsung Electronics semiconductor executives.

Even so, the market singled out Naver. Investors appeared to focus on the new business model the company presented. Until now, companies seen as beneficiaries of ties with Nvidia had largely been semiconductor makers. This time, attention shifted to the possibility that Naver could emerge as an AI infrastructure provider.

Naver said on June 8 that it plans to build a gigawatt-scale global AI factory with Nvidia. An AI factory is next-generation computing infrastructure designed to handle the training and inference of large AI models. Naver plans to begin operations next year with 55 megawatts of capacity, expand that to 100 megawatts in the same year and raise it to 200 megawatts by 2028, with a long-term goal of reaching 1 gigawatt.

The plan goes beyond a simple data center expansion. Naver laid out a blueprint to expand from Gak Sejong, South Korea’s largest hyperscale data center, into markets across Asia-Pacific as well as the Middle East and Europe. The core of the plan is to jointly pursue a global AI infrastructure business using Nvidia’s latest AI platform.

The market took the move as a sign that Naver is expanding beyond an advertising- and commerce-focused platform company into an AI infrastructure player.

Naver had been one of the stocks left behind in this year’s AI rally. While Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix surged on expectations of benefiting from AI chip demand, Naver missed out on a valuation rerating as concerns mounted over slowing advertising demand and stagnant platform growth.

This time was different. Rather than competing in services such as AI search or AI assistants, Naver presented itself as a builder of core infrastructure for the AI era. For investors, that offered a new growth story.

Brokerages said the scale of the project was also larger than expected. The ultimate goal of 1 gigawatt is roughly four times the maximum capacity of Naver’s Gak Sejong data center. That would be enough to house hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s latest graphics processing units.

Lee Seung-hoon, an analyst at IBK Investment & Securities, said the announcement amounted to a declaration that Naver aims to become “Asia’s version of CoreWeave,” the US AI cloud infrastructure company. The company plans to open up data center capabilities previously used for internal operations and take on the role of a global infrastructure supplier, he added.

Kim So-hye, an analyst at Hanwha Investment & Securities, said Naver had not received a fair valuation despite operating its own cloud business because of limits in attracting outside customers. Commercializing the AI factory project for external clients creates room for both a medium- to long-term growth engine and a rerating of the company’s value, she said.

Naver had been valued more like a conventional platform company because it lacked a growth narrative, Kim said. Once AI revenue begins to make up a meaningful share of sales, the valuation of a cloud infrastructure provider could also be reflected.

Huang, who visited Naver’s second headquarters building, 1784, in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on June 8, stressed the importance of AI infrastructure throughout the event.

At a special event organized by Naver Webtoon, Huang joked that “the more GPUs you have, the more work you can do and the happier you can be.” He also wrote in an empty speech bubble in a webtoon, “Don’t worry! I have GPUs.”

Lee Hae-jin, chairman of Naver’s board, said the alliance was highly encouraging because it offers a concrete alternative for regions and countries around the world to build their own sovereign AI capabilities. The partnership is meaningful because it creates an opportunity for Naver’s technological infrastructure competitiveness to take a step forward in global markets, he added.

Kim Yeon-ji, Hankyung.com reporter kongzi@hankyung.com