[Edaily Reporter Kim Hyun-ah ] Naver (NAVER(035420)), NVIDIA, and Brookfield are embarking on a large-scale investment to expand South Korea’s national AI infrastructure. They plan to expand the capacity of the AI Factory currently under construction at the Sejong Data Center from the initial 55 megawatts (MW) to 200 MW by 2028, and ultimately build a 1-gigawatt (GW)-class sovereign AI infrastructure.

On the 25th (KST), NVIDIA announced plans to expand South Korea’s AI Factory infrastructure alongside Naver and Brookfield at the AI Summit in San Francisco, USA.

The core of this project is to expand the 55-megawatt (MW) NVIDIA DSX AI Factory—announced last June—to 200 MW by 2028, more than tripling its capacity. The facility will be built at Naver’s “Gak Sejong” hyperscale data center in Sejong City.

In particular, Naver also presented a blueprint to expand its AI infrastructure to 1GW in the long term and establish a national-level AI computing platform for businesses, industries, and the government.

Global AI and infrastructure companies are injecting substantial funds into this investment. NVIDIA plans to invest $1 billion in Naver, and Brookfield has signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to provide up to $9 billion in funding. Naver plans to secure the remaining project funding.

The expanded AI Factory will provide large-scale computing resources that AI startups and companies in South Korea and the United States can utilize to develop next-generation AI models, Agent AI, and AI services.

Lee Hae-jin, Naver’s founder and chairman of the board, stated, “Through NVIDIA’s strategic investment and our infrastructure partnership with Brookfield, the Naver AI Factory vision has entered a full-scale implementation phase,” adding, “Together with our global partners, we will foster a sovereign AI ecosystem and contribute to strengthening Korea’s AI competitiveness.”

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, emphasized, “The AI Factory is the core infrastructure that will determine a nation’s competitiveness in the Age of Intelligence,” adding, “Together with Naver and Brookfield, we are building a sovereign AI infrastructure on a scale capable of supporting South Korea’s startups and industries.”

Sikander Rashid, Global Head of AI Infrastructure at Brookfield, stated, “By combining Brookfield’s global AI infrastructure investment capabilities, Naver’s expertise in AI and data center operations, and NVIDIA’s accelerated computing technology, we will enhance Korea’s AI competitiveness.”

The newly constructed 200MW AI factory will feature AI systems based on the next-generation GPU platforms “Vera Rubin” and “Blackwell.” As a NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP), Naver will operate hyperscale infrastructure based on the full-stack NVIDIA AI platform.

The two companies will also expand their collaboration on AI model development. Naver is enhancing its own hyper-scale AI model, “HyperClova X,” based on NVIDIA’s open model “Nemotron 3 Ultra,” and is participating in NVIDIA’s open model development project, the “Nemotron Coalition.”

Additionally, in the second half of this year, they plan to launch an Agent AI platform in South Korea using NVIDIA’s Agent AI software and develop a digital world model of Seoul using NVIDIA’s world foundation model, “Cosmos.”

Brookfield currently holds approximately $100 billion in assets under management (AUM) in AI infrastructure sectors such as data centers, semiconductors, and power, and in South Korea, it manages approximately $12 billion in assets, primarily in the infrastructure, real estate, and energy sectors.