South Korea Accelerates AI Infrastructure Ambitions, Taps NAVER and NVIDIA

South Korea (ANTARA) - South Korea is accelerating its ambitions to build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure through a partnership between NAVER, NVIDIA and Brookfield.

TheTechBuzz reported on Saturday local time that the three companies had announced an increase in the capacity of the sovereign AI factory to 200 megawatts (MW), more than triple the initial plan of 55 MW announced last month. In the long term, NAVER is targeting capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW).

Less than a month after announcing the 55 MW project with NVIDIA, NAVER immediately raised its target to 200 MW. The move demonstrates the high demand for AI computing in South Korea, exceeding initial estimates.

For context, a capacity of 200 MW is sufficient to operate tens of thousands of NVIDIA’s latest GPUs, which are used to train advanced AI models and serve millions of AI requests.

Brookfield’s involvement shows that investors view AI infrastructure as a strategic sector with significant growth prospects, especially for countries seeking to reduce their dependence on cloud services from the United States.

According to NVIDIA, the facility will use the NVIDIA DSX AI Factory platform, a system that combines GPUs, networking, software and AI computing management devices to train and run large language models (LLMs) and other AI applications.

As South Korea’s largest internet company, NAVER wants to strengthen its AI capabilities after American technology companies took an early lead with models such as ChatGPT.

The move also aligns with a wider trend across Asia. Japan has announced the development of domestic AI computing capacity, while Singapore is striving to become a regional AI hub. Many countries are beginning to view AI infrastructure as a strategic asset, much like the semiconductor industry and energy networks.

For NVIDIA, the project also represents a major business opportunity. Although the value of the contract has not been disclosed, building a 200 MW AI facility is estimated to require GPUs worth hundreds of millions to more than one billion US dollars.

Nevertheless, the construction timetable towards the 200 MW capacity, as well as the 1 GW target, has not been announced in detail. Electricity supply, permitting processes and GPU availability remain the main challenges in realising the project.

However, the rapid increase in targets shows that the global race to build AI infrastructure is accelerating and is expected to continue growing in the years ahead.