Naver founder and Board Chairman Lee Hae-jin announced that the company has secured a $10 billion (approximately 14.63 trillion won) investment from Nvidia and global alternative asset manager Brookfield.

Speaking at an AI-related event held in San Francisco on the 24th (local time), Chairman Lee stated, "Nvidia and Brookfield have decided to make a massive investment of $10 billion in Naver," adding, "This will serve as a stepping stone for Naver to leap forward into a new phase."

Lee also unveiled a vision to expand Naver's artificial intelligence (AI) and data center businesses into the global market, using this investment as a springboard.

"The challenge Naver faced was scaling up its accumulated knowledge and operational know-how to a massive level," Lee emphasized, adding, "The capital, global brands, and networks of these two companies will provide a great opportunity to scale up Naver's expertise."

Based on this investment, it is analyzed that Naver intends to expand its global AI infrastructure business by combining its proprietary data center design and operation technologies, AI models, and cloud service capabilities.

Lee explained that over the past 30 years, Naver has developed and operated various internet services, including search, commerce, content, and cloud, amidst competition with big tech companies from the United States and China.

He also introduced that to operate these services stably, the company has directly designed and built data centers, accumulating related technologies and operational experience.

Currently, Naver is pursuing "AI Factory" cooperation with Nvidia, spanning from AI computing infrastructure to AI models and enterprise services.

Brookfield is a global asset management company with capabilities in large-scale infrastructure investments such as data centers, power, and energy, and is expected to provide the capital and foundational facilities necessary for the expansion of Naver's AI infrastructure business.

(Photo: Yonhap News)