Naver to invest $690m in GPUs starting in 2026

Naver will invest at least 1 trillion won (US$690 million) starting in 2026 to acquire GPUs and expand its AI infrastructure.

The South Korea-based internet firm plans to use the GPUs for physical AI projects, where AI operates within real-world industrial systems.

This investment includes a recent agreement with Nvidia to secure 60,000 Blackwell GPUs, the largest allocation among Nvidia’s Korean partners.

Nvidia announced it would supply 260,000 GPUs, valued at 14 trillion won (US$10 billion), to South Korean partners including the government, Samsung, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and Naver Cloud.

Naver aims to link the new GPUs to its GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) revenue model.

The company reported Q3 sales of 3.1 trillion won (US$2.2 billion) and operating profit of 570.6 billion won (US$408 billion), both at record highs.

Enterprise business sales rose 3.8% year-on-year to 150 billion won (US$107 million), supported by GPUaaS revenues.

🔗 Source: The Korea Times

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Korea’s GPU bottleneck comes from power and space

Naver plans 60,000 Blackwell GPUs (Nvidia’s next-generation AI chips). They help if deliveries match power and cooling at Gak Sejong, the hyperscale campus in Sejong City. It runs at about one-sixth of its planned buildout with capacity maxed, so Phase 2 and Phase 3 started together because the campus is full.
Blackwell GPUs will need direct liquid cooling (circulating coolant to hot components) to support racks at 30 to 50 kilowatts. Naver is testing immersion cooling (submerging servers in a nonconductive fluid) at Gak Chuncheon. Phase 2 and Phase 3 at Gak Sejong target 2027 to 2029, the campus design tops out at 275 megawatts via a substation with no extra power confirmed, so the 2026 spend likely rolls out over several years.

Liquid cooling vendors can target Korea’s 2025-26 retrofit wave

Retrofits for higher densities will drive orders for direct liquid cooling and immersion systems. Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm, backs an 80 megawatt facility in Yongin (a city in Gyeonggi Province) with 60 to 200 kilowatt racks using coolant distribution units (CDUs) that route liquid to servers.
Infrastructure investors should track Korea’s Digital New Deal (a government initiative that funds digital infrastructure) procurement and near-term power in Greater Seoul, where few large permitted sites with power keep supply tight. Naver moving on Phase 2 and Phase 3 plus rival buildouts points to 2025 to 2026 projects that need high density cooling, upgraded power distribution, plus 800G (800 gigabit per second) networking.