Nvidia allocates $1 billion to Naver and finalizes a $500 billion agreement with SK Group.

      Nvidia is set to invest $1 billion in the South Korean internet firm Naver to support the construction of an AI data center in South Korea. This investment will enable Naver to significantly expand the data center's capacity from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts, with US private equity firm Brookfield agreeing to a nonbinding term sheet to provide up to $9 billion for the initiative. The facility will utilize Nvidia’s AI computing hardware.

      In addition, Nvidia has announced a long-term commercial partnership with SK Group, valued at over $500 billion. This amount includes Nvidia's expenditures on memory chips from SK Hynix, the largest supplier of high-bandwidth memory in the world, as well as SK Group's acquisitions of Nvidia’s supercomputers. SK Telecom plans to establish over 2 gigawatts of AI data centers in South Korea, with the first one expected to open next year.

      These announcements were made during South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's visit to Silicon Valley, and there are indications of further tech collaborations between Korean and American firms. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang remarked to Bloomberg Television that South Korea is experiencing a "golden age," citing its growing semiconductor and industrial sectors as factors for investment. Nvidia will also collaborate with SK Hynix to design future high-bandwidth memory chips, aiming to secure access to components that are currently scarce due to the global expansion of AI data centers.

      These agreements represent the latest in Nvidia's ongoing investment strategy, which has seen the company commit over $40 billion to AI equity ventures in the past year, including $30 billion in OpenAI. Earlier this week, Nvidia entered into a separate arrangement with Amkor Technology to enhance chip packaging, and it recently returned from a trip to Japan that featured partnerships with Toyota and local robotics companies. Some critics have labeled this investment strategy as circular financing, where Nvidia invests in firms that then purchase its hardware, a model the company has used with data center operators, neoclouds, and now sovereign AI collaborators.

      For South Korea, these deals signify a commitment to maintaining its role in the AI infrastructure landscape, even as geopolitical factors alter chip supply chains. Samsung and SK Hynix are among the few companies capable of producing the advanced memory chips that Nvidia’s processors require, and establishing a design partnership with Nvidia provides SK Hynix with a competitive edge. Huang has asserted that every nation should develop its own sovereign AI capabilities, and South Korea's expertise in chipmaking and its abundant engineering talent position it well for this task.