NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) plans to invest about $1 billion in NAVER Corp as part of a broader effort to expand artificial intelligence datacenter infrastructure in South Korea.

Announced Saturday during South Korean President Lee Jae Myung‘s visit to the AI Summit in San Francisco, the project would expand NAVER’s GAK Sejong AI datacenter from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts by 2028, with Brookfield Asset Management Ltd (NYSE:BAM) proposing up to $9 billion to fund the AI infrastructure.

NAVER To Issue Shares To NVIDIA

A regulatory filing from NAVER on Monday said NVIDIA will buy 7.2 million newly issued shares at 204,500 KRW ($139.45) each, about a 1% discount to NAVER’s Friday closing price, as part of its planned $1 billion investment.

NAVER also updated the partnership structure, saying NVIDIA will participate as the supplier of GPUs for the AI datacenter rather than as a partner sharing revenue and business risks.

Next-Generation AI Systems

NVIDIA said the expanded facility is expected to deploy Vera Rubin and Blackwell systems, providing production-scale AI computing capacity for enterprises, startups and government organizations.

The companies said the project will support the development and deployment of next-generation AI models and applications across South Korea.

NAVER Partnership Grows

The deal expands a partnership announced in June, when NAVER said it would use NVIDIA technology to support AI data center expansion and industrial AI applications.

The June announcement also included NVIDIA’s partnerships with SK Hynix (NASDAQ:SKHY), SK Telecom and Doosan as NVIDIA expanded its presence in the country’s AI ecosystem.

Price Action: NVDA’s shares closed 0.92% lower on Friday at $206.84 and fell 0.02% in extended trading.

In Seoul, NAVER was up 7.23% at 222,500 KRW ($151.76) at the time of writing.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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