What Happens When NVIDIA and Brookfield Pour $10 Billion into South Korea’s AI Grid?
How a $10 Billion Sovereign Infrastructure Megadeal Between NAVER, NVIDIA, and Brookfield Connects East Asian Compute Directly to Saskatchewan’s Uranium Heartlan.
Silicon Valley, Seoul, and global energy markets are locking arms in a landmark infrastructure deal designed to supercharge South Korea’s artificial intelligence capabilities, while quietly sending shockwaves through the nuclear energy sector.
Internet leader NAVER Corp (KRX: 035420) has joined forces with semiconductor titan Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) and asset management powerhouse Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM | TSX: BAM) to execute a massive expansion of sovereign AI factory infrastructure. Announced during South Korean President Jae Myung Lee’s visit to the AI Summit in San Francisco, the multi-tiered agreement pairs direct equity investment with structured project financing to turn regional compute ambitions into gigawatt-scale reality.
The financial commitment driving the expansion reflects heavy institutional muscle. Under the proposed framework, NVIDIA plans to execute a $1 billion strategic investment into NAVER, while Brookfield intends to fund up to $9 billion toward the broader AI infrastructure footprint. NAVER will finance the remaining balance required to complete the project. The centerpiece of this capital deployment is NAVER's GAK Sejong hyperscale data center in Sejong, South Korea, where capacity will expand from an initial 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts by 2028, establishing a clear runway toward 1 gigawatt of continuous capacity.
Engineered around the end-to-end Nvidia DSX platform, the expanded GAK Sejong facility will operate as a lowest-cost, multi-tenant AI factory for enterprises, startups, and public sector organizations across South Korea and the United States. On the hardware front, the facility is slated to integrate advanced compute infrastructure, including the NVIDIA Blackwell and Vera Rubin platforms. Software management will rely on DSX MaxLPS software to maximize token throughput per megawatt, alongside DSX OS software for automated health orchestration and multi-tenant operational resiliency. On the model architecture side, NAVER is developing its HyperCLOVA X model family on top of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra open models, establishing itself as the first South Korean company in the Nemotron Coalition.
While headlines naturally gravitating toward graphics processing units and data center megawatt capacity tell part of the story, macro investors are already following the power cords straight to the Athabasca Basin. Scaling AI factories to gigawatt levels demands uninterrupted, 24/7, zero-carbon baseload electricity that intermittent renewable sources simply cannot guarantee. This compute footprint provides a major structural tailwind for nuclear energy and uranium producers.
Brookfield holds a controlling 51 percent stake in nuclear plant innovator Westinghouse Electric Company, alongside a 49 percent joint venture partner in premier uranium supplier Cameco Corporation (NYSE: CCJ | TSX: CCO). Because Cameco extracts its highest-grade uranium production directly from Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin, every gigawatt of AI capacity added to global grids tightens long-term uranium fuel contracting. This dynamic lifts the broader market outlook for Cameco and neighboring Athabasca explorers as the nuclear supply chain gears up for unprecedented demand.
Leaders across the participating organizations emphasized that sovereign computing power and reliable energy backstops are no longer luxury items, but essential economic pillars. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, emphasized that AI factories represent the baseline infrastructure nations require to compete in the intelligence era. Haejin Lee, founder and chairman of NAVER, noted that the strategic partnership puts his company's sovereign AI vision squarely into robust execution mode. Sikander Rashid, global head of AI infrastructure at Brookfield, added that trusted, scalable infrastructure is rapidly becoming an indispensable strategic priority for businesses and governments worldwide.
Source
Data for this report is sourced directly from the official joint announcement issued by NAVER Corp (KRX: 035420), Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), and Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM, TSX: BAM) on July 27, 2026, at the AI Summit in San Francisco, California, alongside strategic partnership disclosures from Cameco Corporation (NYSE: CCJ, TSX: CCO) and Westinghouse Electric Company.