NAVER, NVIDIA, Brookfield expand Korea AI factory to 200 MW by 2028

On July 24, 2026, NAVER, NVIDIA, and Brookfield jointly announced a proposed expansion of Korea's sovereign AI factory infrastructure. The three partners plan to grow the initial NVIDIA DSX AI factory deployment at NAVER's GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Sejong, South Korea, from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts by 2028—more than tripling the capacity announced just the previous month.

The financing structure reflects confidence from all three parties. NVIDIA plans to invest $1 billion（約1600億円） into NAVER Corp, while Brookfield has entered into a nonbinding term sheet to fund up to $9 billion（約1.4兆円）. NAVER will fund the remaining amounts to finance the project. NVIDIA's planned investment is subject to customary closing conditions and NAVER finalizing at least $9 billion（約1.4兆円） of committed financing for the project, separate from NVIDIA's investment. Beyond this expansion, NAVER intends to continue expanding its deployment of NVIDIA AI infrastructure toward 1 gigawatt as part of its path to gigawatt-scale sovereign AI infrastructure.

The announcement was made during Korea President Jae Myung Lee's AI Summit visit to San Francisco, highlighting the strategic importance of the initiative to Korea's national AI competitiveness. According to Haejin Lee, founder and chairman of NAVER, "NVIDIA's planned strategic investment and our infrastructure supply agreement with Brookfield have propelled NAVER's vision for the AI factory business into a robust execution phase." The expanded infrastructure will deliver full-stack, lowest-cost AI factory infrastructure for enterprises, industries, and government, while providing Korea- and U.S.-based AI innovators with access to production-scale AI compute for building next-generation models, agents, and AI-powered services.

NAVER's expansion of its AI factory infrastructure represents a significant acceleration of Korea's national AI ambitions. The tripling of capacity from the 55-megawatt initial buildout announced just the previous month to a planned 200 megawatts signals both rapid execution and substantial capital commitment from major partners. NVIDIA's $1 billion（約1600億円） strategic investment and Brookfield's nonbinding commitment of up to $9 billion（約1.4兆円） reflect confidence in the project's viability and Korea's role as a sovereign AI infrastructure hub.

The announcement's timing and venue—during Korea President Jae Myung Lee's AI Summit visit to San Francisco on July 24, 2026—underscore the political and economic significance of the initiative. By providing production-scale AI compute access to innovators in both Korea and the U.S., the infrastructure is positioned to serve a geographically distributed ecosystem rather than a single market. NAVER's stated intention to eventually reach 1 gigawatt of deployment further suggests this expansion is merely the first phase of a much larger vision for sovereign AI infrastructure in the region.

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