Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said "the partnership between Naver and Nvidia has long been a very precious asset to me."
Huang made the remarks Monday afternoon during a "Chzzk" online live broadcast held at Naver's 1784 headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, praising Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin as "a pioneer and world-class leader in the technology field." Chzzk is Naver's gaming and live-streaming platform. Huang and Lee appeared on the broadcast to showcase the two companies' partnership ahead of discussing their roadmap for the global AI factory business.
"Nvidia and Naver have collaborated based on a long friendship," Huang said. "We will expand the partnership between the two companies to build massive AI clouds in Korea and around the world." Earlier Monday morning, Naver and Nvidia announced plans to jointly pursue the construction of gigawatt (GW)-scale ultra-large artificial intelligence (AI) factories in the Asian, Middle Eastern, and European markets.
"Naver was the first company in Asia to adopt Nvidia's GPUs and build a SuperPOD," Lee said. "Based on our collaboration over the years, we are announcing very good (partnership) results today." Addressing Huang, he said, "It is truly an honor to welcome CEO Jensen Huang, whom I have always respected, to our company." Huang and Lee also held a welcome event on the first floor of the headquarters before the live broadcast.
The collaboration between Naver and Nvidia is expected to mark the starting signal for a Korean company entering the global AI infrastructure competition. In building global AI factories with Nvidia, Naver has decided to work together across all stages of the value chain, from discovering global demand to capital cooperation.
Naver will first begin the business at its key hub, the hyperscale data center "Gak Sejong." Starting with the operation of 55 megawatts (MW) in the first half of 2027, the company plans to expand its infrastructure scale overseas to 100 MW the same year and 200 MW in 2028, absorbing global demand. Over the long term, the goal is to build GW-scale infrastructure. One gigawatt is an overwhelming scale capable of simultaneously accommodating hundreds of thousands of Nvidia's latest GPUs.
The two companies will also advance their technological ties across the board. Naver's uniquely accumulated capabilities in building and operating large-scale in-house GPU clusters, along with its hyperscale data center know-how, will be fully integrated with Nvidia's next-generation high-performance infrastructure platform "DSX." Through this, they plan to maximize data center operating efficiency and significantly enhance business viability.
Next-generation technology cooperation in the field of spatial intelligence will also begin in earnest, including building a "Seoul World Model" using Naver's own spatial modeling and street view data on Nvidia's world foundation model "Cosmos." Naver recently became the first Korean company to join the "Nvidia Nemotron Alliance," which brings together 12 global top-tier AI companies including Cursor, Mistral AI, and Perplexity. Based on this, Naver plans to enhance the performance of its own hyperscale AI model, HyperCLOVA X, and secure global versatility.
