Naver Shares Soar Over 10% After $1 Billion Investment From Nvidia

TradingKey - South Korean internet giant Naver received a strategic investment of 1.48 trillion won (approx. $1 billion) from Nvidia, with its stock price surging up to 12% intraday.

On July 27 Asia time, South Korean internet giant Naver (KRX: 035420) due to receiving a strategic investment from AI giant Nvidia ( NVDA )'s strategic investment, saw its stock price surge 12% intraday, once breaking through 230,000 won (totaling $156.84). Currently, Naver's gains have narrowed to 9.4%, temporarily trading at 227,000 won.

Naver stock price chart, Source: TradingView

It is reported that Nvidia spent 1.48 trillion won (approximately $1 billion) to subscribe to about 7.24 million new shares of Naver through a third-party private placement, acquiring approximately a 4.5% stake. Upon completion of this transaction, Nvidia will become Naver's third-largest shareholder, behind only South Korea's National Pension Service (NPS) and BlackRock ( BLK ).

Naver is South Korea's largest tech giant and internet service provider, holding a status equivalent to Google ( GOOGL ), and Nvidia's $1 billion funding will be used for Naver's data center expansion project in Sejong, South Korea, significantly boosting its AI computing capacity from the original 55MW to over 200MW, all fully equipped with Nvidia's top-tier AI chips and supercomputing equipment.

For Nvidia, acquiring a stake in Naver can secure South Korea's High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) supply, while in turn securing Naver's purchase of Nvidia's hardware. In addition, CEO Jensen Huang has been fully promoting the concept of "sovereign AI" in recent years, advocating that countries should possess their own AI computing power, data, and local large models. This move undoubtedly accelerates the implementation of sovereign AI in Asia.