NAVER signs $9 billion compute infrastructure deal with Athens Infrastructure; NVIDIA to become its third-largest shareholder

on October 27, according to Yonhap News, NAVER announced on the same day that it has signed a computing infrastructure contract worth approximately $9 billion (roughly 12 trillion Korean won) with global asset manager Brookfield to meet the prerequisites for NVIDIA's strategic equity investment. NVIDIA's subscription process for an additional $1 billion (approximately 1.3 trillion Korean won) third-party placement of NAVER shares is expected to be completed in the near future, after which it will become NAVER's third-largest shareholder.

This contract is part of the $10 billion global AI factory project jointly announced by the three parties in July. Under their respective roles, NAVER will handle operations, NVIDIA will provide technical cooperation for next-generation high-performance computing platforms such as DSX, and Brookfield will manage infrastructure financing. As a result, NAVER will not need to directly shoulder the substantial capital expenditures for data center construction and GPU procurement, allowing it to focus on AI infrastructure operations and customer expansion.