Naver is joining hands with Nvidia to emerge as a global artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure company. The two companies plan to build a mega AI cloud to capture the rapidly growing global demand for AI computing and create an "Asian version of CoreWeave."
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made the announcement at a media scrum held Monday at Naver's headquarters, 1784. "Nvidia chose Naver and plans to expand AI factories not only in Korea but across Asia," he said. Huang explained the background of the partnership with Naver, saying, "Naver has developed world-class AI technology and cloud. We jointly developed Korea's first AI model with Nvidia, and Naver was our first supercomputer customer and partner in the Southeast Asia region."
Through this collaboration, the two companies agreed to jointly build a gigawatt (GW)-class mega global AI factory. They plan to build "sovereign AI" infrastructure in countries around the world based on Nvidia's AI factory optimization platform, the "DSX architecture." As AI rapidly spreads worldwide, AI computing demand, which had been concentrated in the United States and China, is sharply expanding to Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Naver and Nvidia plan to first secure leadership in the AI infrastructure ecosystem in the Asian market, which holds high growth potential. Through this, they aim to gain influence comparable to CoreWeave, which leads the AI cloud sector. Naver expects to generate 20 trillion won in revenue from the AI factory business, accounting for about half of its total performance.
"Starting with the joint construction of a 200-megawatt (MW)-class AI factory with Naver, we plan to expand it to a 1-gigawatt (GW) scale in the future," Huang said. One GW is about four times the maximum capacity of Naver's data center "Gak Sejong."
The two companies will also strengthen cooperation in areas such as Nemotron and physical AI. Nemotron is Nvidia's open AI foundation model, and the "Nvidia Nemotron Alliance" includes 12 global AI companies such as Mistral AI and Perplexity. Naver joined as the first Korean company.
"Nvidia's frontier AI lab is forming a partnership with Naver," Huang said. "We are forming a team with Naver through the Nemotron Alliance to build an open frontier AI model." Naver plans to enhance the performance of its hyperscale AI model HyperCLOVA X using Nemotron technology.
Huang also stressed the need for cooperation with Naver in the physical AI field. "Naver has built robotics systems for a long time, and I enjoyed the iced coffee that a robot served me when I was upstairs a moment ago. We will work together with Naver to further accelerate this," he said. "The two companies will lead the world by building a partnership in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics."
In his final remarks of the day, Huang lifted the mood at the venue with his characteristic cheer, shouting, "Go Naver! Go Korea!" He expressed friendliness, saying, "Please call me 'K-Jensen' when I come to Korea from now on," and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin responded, "As a reward for widely promoting Korea overseas, I will pay for the samgyeopsal I eat with CEO Huang for the rest of my life."
