Naver shares jumped more than 10 per cent on July 27 after the South Korean internet giant said Nvidia would buy US$1 billion of new stock to help fund a massive AI data centre expansion. The investment makes Nvidia a 4.5 per cent owner of Naver and anchors a project that could eventually swallow US$10 billion in capital.
The money and the math
Nvidia will pay 204,500 won per share for 7.2 million new shares, a 1 per cent discount to the July 24 close. Brookfield is committing up to US$9 billion in project financing, leaving Naver to contribute relatively little equity for a 200-megawatt facility in Sejong slated for 2028.
The National Pension Service remains the largest shareholder at 9.25 per cent, with BlackRock Fund Advisors at 6.12 per cent as of end-2025. Nvidia's 4.5 per cent stake slots in behind them, a meaningful position for a company that typically sells chips rather than buys into operators.
Sovereign AI hits a hyperscaler
The deal is a textbook example of Jensen Huang's sovereign AI thesis, nations building their own infrastructure rather than renting from US hyperscalers. Naver gets Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin and Blackwell platforms; Nvidia gets a foothold in a national champion and a showcase for gigawatt-scale ambitions.
The Sejong site is currently South Korea's largest hyperscale data centre at 200 megawatts, but the June agreement targets a full gigawatt, four times that capacity, capable of holding hundreds of thousands of Nvidia's latest graphics processors at once.
What to watch
Whether the sovereign model actually broadens Nvidia's customer base beyond the usual suspects, or just concentrates more chips in fewer hands, remains the open question. The US$30 billion OpenAI and US$10 billion Anthropic investments suggest Nvidia is comfortable writing massive checks, but those are bets on model makers while this is a bet on a utility. If the 200-megawatt phase delivers on schedule, the gigawatt follow-on becomes a real pipeline rather than a press release.