Naver rises 10% after Nvidia plans $1B investment in South Korean AI expansion

Nvidia is writing a billion-dollar check, and the market noticed immediately. Shares of Naver, South Korea’s dominant internet company, jumped more than 10% on July 27, 2026, after Nvidia announced plans to acquire newly issued Naver shares worth $1 billion at 204,500 won apiece, a price reflecting a 1% discount to the prior close. What the deal actually involves Naver’s GAK Sejong AI facility, currently operating at 55 MW of capacity, is slated to scale to 200 MW by 2028. That is nearly a fourfold expansion, powered by Nvidia’s DSX platform and its latest GPU hardware. Layered on top of Nvidia’s equity investment, Brookfield Asset Management has committed up to $9 billion in project financing to support the broader expansion. Nvidia is also separately collaborating with SK Group on more than 2 GW of AI data center capacity across South Korea. Why Naver, and why now Naver operates South Korea’s dominant search engine, a major cloud platform, and an increasingly ambitious financial services arm through Naver Financial. In November 2025, Naver Financial announced a $10.3 billion stock-swap deal to acquire Dunamu, the parent company of Upbit, which is South Korea’s largest crypto exch...