$1 billion from Nvidia bought a 4.5% stake in Naver, giving the Korean tech company its first outside investor in 22 years.
Naver shares jumped after the deal signaled that Nvidia sees the company as a key node in a global AI factory network.
The investment lands as AI-driven chip demand is reshaping regional supply chains, with South Korea's semiconductor exports to Taiwan and the United States rising while China's share keeps slipping.
That backdrop strengthens Naver's strategic position in the broader AI ecosystem, where chipmakers and platform companies are racing to secure infrastructure, data and computing partnerships.
How sustainable is the massive energy demand required for expanding global AI factories like Naver's gigawatt-scale infrastructure?
Will China's aggressive push for memory self-sufficiency eventually disrupt the lucrative AI supply chain currently dominated by South Korea and Taiwan?
Could TSMC's ongoing packaging bottleneck completely neutralize the speed advantages of Samsung's next-generation HBM5 chips?