Nvidia commits $1 billion to South Korea’s AI buildout

Nvidia is committing $1 billion to Naver and announcing a commercial partnership with SK Group valued at more than $500 billion, deepening its push to secure infrastructure and components for the global AI buildout.

The chipmaker said late Friday that its investment in South Korean internet company Naver will help finance an AI data center currently under construction. The funding will allow Naver to expand the facility from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts. The site will run on Nvidia’s AI computing hardware.

US private equity firm Brookfield has separately agreed to a nonbinding term sheet to provide up to $9 billion for the project.

Nvidia and SK Group’s $500 billion partnership

Nvidia’s long-term commercial partnership with SK Group covers both data-center infrastructure and memory chips. The more than $500 billion figure includes Nvidia’s purchases of memory from SK Hynix, the world’s largest supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), as well as SK Group’s purchases of Nvidia supercomputers.

SK Telecom will build more than 2 gigawatts of AI data-center capacity on the Korean Peninsula, with the first facility scheduled to open next year. Nvidia will also help SK Hynix design future HBM chips, supporting the chipmaker’s access to a component that remains in short supply as companies expand AI data centers worldwide.

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The announcements coincide with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s visit to Silicon Valley. Additional technology agreements between Korean and American companies are reportedly in development.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg Television that South Korea is entering a “golden age,” citing its expanding semiconductor and industrial businesses as reasons to invest.

Nvidia’s investment strategy draws scrutiny

The Korea deals are the latest move in a year-long investment spree during which Nvidia has committed more than $40 billion to AI equity positions, including $30 billion in OpenAI. Earlier this week, the chipmaker signed a separate agreement with Amkor Technology to strengthen chip packaging. Nvidia also recently completed a trip to Japan that included deals with Toyota and Japanese robotics companies.

Critics have characterized the pattern as circular financing: Nvidia invests in companies that then purchase its hardware. The chipmaker has used a similar structure with data-center operators, neoclouds and sovereign AI partners.

For South Korea, the agreements are a bet that its semiconductor industry can stay central to AI development as geopolitical tensions reshape chip supply chains. Samsung and SK Hynix are the only two companies in the world capable of producing the advanced memory chips Nvidia’s processors require, and a design partnership with Nvidia could give SK Hynix a structural advantage over its rival.

Huang has argued that every country should develop its own sovereign AI capability. South Korea’s chipmaking expertise and engineering workforce make it one of the countries best positioned to pursue that goal.