[Edaily Reporter Han Kwangbeom ] Brookfield, a leading global alternative investment firm that has decided to invest $10 billion in the South Korean company Naver (NAVER(035420)) alongside NVIDIA—the world’s leading AI semiconductor company—announced on the 27th, “We will work closely with Naver and NVIDIA to jointly build the foundation for South Korea’s next-generation AI innovation.”
Brookfield made this announcement in a statement released the same day after Naver disclosed the $10 billion investment from NVIDIA and Brookfield. Brookfield emphasized, “South Korea possesses all the foundations necessary to emerge as a global leader in AI, and building national AI infrastructure is paramount to realizing this opportunity,” adding, “Brookfield possesses expertise across the entire spectrum of AI infrastructure, encompassing energy, land, data centers, as well as computing infrastructure and AI operational capabilities.”
Earlier that morning, Sikander Rashid, Head of AI Infrastructure at Brookfield, stated in a Naver press release, “This partnership will combine Brookfield’s global AI infrastructure investment capabilities, Naver’s full-stack AI and data center operational expertise, and NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform to elevate South Korea’s AI capabilities to the next level.” “As AI adoption accelerates across the global economy, access to reliable and scalable sovereign AI infrastructure is becoming a critical strategic priority for both companies and nations,” he added.
This collaboration was finalized after Naver secured a $1 billion (approximately 1.4809 trillion won) equity investment from NVIDIA through a third-party private placement, and selected Brookfield as the exclusive preferred bidder to acquire GPU infrastructure and data centers valued at up to $9 billion (approximately 13 trillion won). This is a massive global AI infrastructure project totaling $10 billion (approximately 14.8 trillion won).
While leading global investment firms expressed interest in investing in this project, Naver granted Brookfield exclusive priority negotiation rights primarily due to Brookfield’s unparalleled capabilities in securing physical assets and infrastructure.
Brookfield, a global alternative investment firm with over $1 trillion in assets under management (AUM), currently manages approximately $100 billion in assets across the entire global AI infrastructure value chain. Beyond mere financial capital, the firm is directly equipped with physical assets—such as data centers, power, and renewable energy—that are essential for operating AI factories, making it the optimal partner for reliably securing large-scale computing infrastructure. Since entering the Korean market in 2014, Brookfield has managed approximately $12 billion in infrastructure, real estate, and energy assets.
Through this partnership, Naver, NVIDIA, and Brookfield plan to significantly expand the NVIDIA DSX-based AI factories currently being built at each of Naver’s Sejong data centers to a capacity of 200 megawatts (MW) by 2028, with plans to scale up to 1 gigawatt (GW) of sovereign AI infrastructure in the future. Based on this, they plan to supply large-scale AI computing resources to innovative AI companies in South Korea and the United States, while proactively meeting the demand for sovereign AI in the Asia-Pacific, European, and Middle Eastern markets.
