Naver Corp. signed a $9 billion agreement with Brookfield Asset Management to pay for the processors and data centers behind its artificial intelligence computing business, the South Korean internet company said on Oct. 27, a step that also cleared the way for a $1 billion equity investment from Nvidia Corp.

The deal turns a nonbinding term sheet announced in July into a signed contract. For investors in Asia, it is a template worth studying: an infrastructure fund, not the operator, will own the graphics processing units and the buildings, and the operator will rent the capacity back. That shifts billions of dollars of capital spending off Naver's own budget, though the company's statement shows it still carries much of the risk.

How the Naver and Brookfield structure works

Under the agreement, Brookfield will set up a special purpose vehicle, tentatively called Asset Co., that will invest up to $9 billion to buy GPUs and data center assets, Naver said. That vehicle will then sell computing power to Naver Cloud, the Naver unit that will run the AI factory business and sell capacity to outside customers.

The Elec reported in August that the operator would pay the Brookfield vehicle for capacity on a per-megawatt basis and resell it to companies, government agencies and AI developers at a markup, with that margin as its main source of revenue. Brookfield earns its return from those long-term usage fees, a setup the publication compared to a property owner earning rent, except that the leased assets include GPUs, power and cooling as well as buildings.

Two details in Naver's statement matter for anyone modeling the company. First, Naver agreed to guarantee Naver Cloud's usage fee obligations for up to eight years. Naver said the guarantee does not by itself create cash outflows or costs. Second, although Brookfield will contribute all of Asset Co.'s capital, Naver expects the vehicle to be consolidated as its subsidiary because it is deemed to have control under Korean accounting standards. In other words, the assets and obligations are likely to show up on Naver's books even though Brookfield's money pays for them.

Naver said the arrangement ties fee payments to business revenue and should ease the early financial strain of building large-scale AI infrastructure.

Nvidia stake and the 200 MW buildout

The signing met the condition attached to Nvidia's investment. When the three companies announced the project in San Francisco on July 24, during President Lee Jae Myung's visit, Nvidia said its $1 billion was subject to Naver securing at least $9 billion of committed financing. KED Global reported that the investment buys Nvidia a 4.5% stake. Naver said it would promptly complete a share issue to Nvidia through a third-party allotment and give details later. The deal has not closed yet: citing a Naver regulatory filing, Yonhap reported on Oct. 30 that Nvidia is scheduled to pay on Friday, Nov. 6, after the number of shares is set on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and that the purchase will make Nvidia Naver's third-largest shareholder.

The total project is valued at $10 billion, with Brookfield as exclusive capital partner, Nvidia's $1 billion and Naver covering the remainder, according to Naver's July release. The plan expands the AI factory at Naver's GAK Sejong data center from 55 megawatts to 200 MW, built on Nvidia's Blackwell and Vera Rubin platforms. Naver now expects to start operating 55 MW in the first half of 2027 and reach 200 MW in 2028, using Sejong as the hub before expanding overseas. The Korea Herald reported that the site is expected to hold about 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, and Naver has said its long-term goal is 1 gigawatt.

Brookfield has said it manages about $100 billion of assets across the AI infrastructure value chain. Nvidia's July statement said the firm has invested in South Korea since 2014 and manages about $12 billion of assets there.

Why lenders were cautious

The financing took longer than the first 12-week negotiating window. The Korea Herald reported on Oct. 8 that the period was about to expire, that the structure was still under discussion, and that KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana and Woori banks, along with state-run Korea Development Bank, were considering taking part. Naver's Oct. 27 statement did not say whether Korean banks joined.

The newspaper described the hesitation in terms familiar to any data center investor in the region. A conventional data center leased to a cloud provider produces steady rent. An AI data center also has to pay for GPUs, which lose value quickly as new chips arrive, so lenders need confidence in utilization rates years ahead. One financing source told the paper that lenders are "becoming increasingly selective."

The same pressure is visible across Asia. Spending on AI data centers lifted Thai private investment in September, and AI companies took more than half of the region's third-quarter startup funding. Naver's structure, in which a fund owns the hardware and the operator guarantees the rent, may show other Asian platforms how to raise that money without issuing large amounts of debt or equity themselves.

The next things to watch are the share count for Nvidia's subscription, due to be set on Nov. 3, the payment on Nov. 6 and the first 55 MW coming online in the first half of 2027.