Naver Corp's stock posted a strong gain on Monday after the company revealed a partnership with Nvidia to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure in South Korea. The announcement propelled Naver shares up nearly 14% to 290,500 won, substantially outperforming a KOSPI index that fell by about 9% on the same day.
Under the agreement, Naver and Nvidia will work together to construct what they described as "AI factories" - data centers and associated infrastructure designed to support AI workloads - over the coming years. Their initial project aims at building a 55 megawatt installation, with the stated objective of eventually scaling capacity up to the gigawatt level through deployment of Nvidia's DSX platform.
"NAVER is building AI factory infrastructure that will serve its companies, developers and industries," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a company statement accompanying the announcement.
The partners emphasized a focus on sovereign AI infrastructure, and they said the effort will begin with an expansion at Naver's Gak Sejon data center located in the city of Sejong. Beyond the data center build-out, Naver and Nvidia also signaled collaboration on physical AI use cases targeted at enterprise customers and surveillance applications.
Naver is the largest online search engine in South Korea and is also a joint owner of the LINE messaging application. The company has increased its investment in artificial intelligence in recent years and has developed in-house large language models, most notably HyperCLOVA X.
The timing of the partnership announcement coincided with a visit to South Korea by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who met with several major technology leaders during the trip. In addition to the agreement with Naver, Nvidia also disclosed deals with SK Hynix Inc and Doosan as part of its engagements in the country.
Market reaction
Investors responded strongly to the Naver-Nvidia collaboration, lifting Naver's share price sharply on the day of the announcement. The move contrasted with the broader market decline on the KOSPI index.
Strategic focus
Both companies framed the collaboration around the construction of localized AI infrastructure - described as sovereign - and signaled an intention to move from an initial mid‑scale deployment toward substantially larger, gigawatt‑class capacity using Nvidia's DSX platform. The partnership also extends beyond core data center builds into applied AI fields such as enterprise and surveillance systems.
Note: This article reports the details of the announced partnership and market response as stated by the companies and observed in market pricing. It does not include additional analysis or forecasts beyond those statements.