Nvidia Takes 4.54% Stake in Naver as AI Factory Alliance Begins

Nvidia is set to become one of Naver's major shareholders. Naver announced on October 30 that it will issue new shares to Nvidia through a third-party allocation capital increase, giving the chip giant a 4.54% stake and pushing the joint global AI factory project with Nvidia and Brookfield into its implementation phase.

According to Naver, the move follows the fulfillment of a precondition: securing computing infrastructure worth $9 billion. The final number of shares to be issued is due to be fixed on November 3, with payment expected to be completed on November 6.

Shareholder structure shifts

As of August, Naver's largest shareholder was the National Pension Service at 9.49%, followed by BlackRock at 7.31%. Nvidia will slot in directly behind them. Founder and board chairman Lee Hae-jin, previously third at 4.03%, is expected to slip to fourth, with his stake diluted to 3.84%.

Lee has accepted dilution before. His holding stood at 12.13% in 2000, when Naver merged with Hangame to form NHN, and fell to 7.82% at the 2002 KOSDAQ listing. It dropped to the 6% range the following year, to 5.10% at the 2008 KOSPI transfer, and to the 4% range after Naver split from NHN in 2013. Last November, when announcing the Dunamu share-swap deal with Naver Financial, he said that business comes first and that his own stake was not a key consideration.

What Naver gets

Industry observers see the deal as a bid to stay competitive in an AI market increasingly dominated by a handful of big tech firms with vast capital. With Nvidia as a strategic shareholder, Naver is expected to gain stable, priority access to top-tier AI chips. It is also expected to build a framework for supplying its software and platform infrastructure to the sovereign AI projects Nvidia is pursuing with governments and companies worldwide.

An industry official described the decision as a bold call aimed at securing a business base that can compete on equal terms with global big tech, and a turning point for Naver's AI competitiveness through capital and business cooperation with Nvidia.