NAVER
035420 · KRXNAVER runs Korea's most-used search engine, but the thing Jensen Huang flew to Korea to see wasn't the search box, it was the data center.
Who they are
NAVER, founded in 1999 and headquartered in Seongnam's Bundang district, built its business on Korea's dominant web search and portal service before expanding into commerce, fintech, content, and cloud. CEO Choi Su-yeon, a former corporate lawyer who rejoined NAVER in 2019, has led the company since March 2022 and was reappointed in March 2025.
What they do
NAVER operates GAK Sejong, a hyperscale data center that opened in 2023 with capacity for roughly 600,000 server units, about six times the capacity of GAK Chuncheon, the company's first self-built data center a decade earlier. In June 2026, Nvidia announced it would expand GAK Sejong's infrastructure with a new Nvidia DSX-based AI cloud deployment, built to run NAVER's own HyperCLOVA X large language model as well as sovereign and agentic AI services for government and enterprise customers across Korea, the Middle East, and Europe. Unusually, GAK Sejong also runs its own robotics layer, called ARC (AI-Robot-Cloud), coordinating autonomous shuttles and warehouse robots that physically move equipment around the 290,000-square-meter site.
How NAVER makes money
NAVER's core businesses, search, commerce, and advertising, remain its primary revenue drivers; annual revenue passed the 10 trillion won mark, with 2025 commerce revenue up 26.2% year over year to about 3.69 trillion won. Cloud and AI, including NAVER Cloud Platform and HyperCLOVA X, represent the growth bet layered on top, positioned as "sovereign AI" infrastructure for governments and enterprises that want AI systems built and hosted outside US hyperscaler control.
The bigger trend
NAVER has spent 2025 and 2026 expanding sovereign-AI partnerships well beyond Korea, including Saudi Arabia's SDAIA and Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, and further deals in France, Spain, and India, positioning itself as an alternative to US hyperscalers for countries and enterprises that want AI infrastructure they control locally. NAVER's stock underperformed for much of the period despite strong underlying results, until news of the Nvidia partnership and a visit from CEO Jensen Huang to NAVER's Bundang headquarters, known as "1784," in late May 2026 helped shift investor sentiment.
Whether the Nvidia DSX expansion at GAK Sejong ships on the announced timeline and translates into new enterprise or sovereign-AI contracts; whether NAVER's sovereign-AI pitch actually wins deals against US hyperscalers in markets like Saudi Arabia and Europe rather than just generating headlines; how much of NAVER's roughly 1 trillion won GPU infrastructure investment converts into paying cloud customers versus internal use for HyperCLOVA X.
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Frequently asked questions
GAK Sejong is NAVER's hyperscale data center, opened in 2023, with capacity for roughly 600,000 server units, about six times the capacity of GAK Chuncheon, NAVER's first self-built data center.
Sovereign AI refers to AI infrastructure and models built, hosted, and operated within a country's own borders and regulatory control, rather than relying on US hyperscalers. NAVER markets this positioning to governments and enterprises in Korea, the Middle East, and Europe.
In June 2026, Nvidia announced an expansion of NAVER's GAK Sejong data center using Nvidia's DSX AI cloud infrastructure, intended to support NAVER's HyperCLOVA X model and sovereign and agentic AI services across Korea and international markets.
This page describes public value-chain positioning for informational purposes only. It is not investment advice, and inclusion here is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures reflect public reporting as of mid-2026 and may have changed since.