Wire

Naver signs a $9B Brookfield deal to rent the GPUs for its AI factory

A Brookfield vehicle will fund up to $9 billion of GPUs and data centres by 2028 that Naver Cloud rents with fees tied to its revenue, guaranteed by Naver for up to eight years. The plan starts at 55 MW in the first half of 2027.

Sean

— 4 min read
Share
Naver rents $9B of GPUs it won't own. A long AI data centre hall of liquid-cooled server racks lit in gold.
Illustration generated for Second Order. Not a photo of a Naver site.

WIRE · HYPERSCALERS · NAVER · Data as at 27 Oct 2026

Korea's biggest internet company has found someone else to buy its AI chips. On 27 October 2026, Naver filed an amended disclosure saying it has signed a deal under which a vehicle owned by Brookfield's AI infrastructure fund will put up to $9 billion into GPUs, data centres and other computing kit by 2028. Naver Cloud will not buy that equipment. It will rent it as GPU-as-a-service and pay usage fees linked to the revenue it earns selling AI computing to its own customers. On the hyperscalers layer, this is a cloud company building an AI factory with a landlord's balance sheet instead of its own.

What happened

27 October 2026 · Naver filing

Brookfield vehicle to fund up to $9bn of computing infrastructure by 2028

The vehicle, provisionally called Asset Co, is 100% funded by Brookfield but will be consolidated as a Naver subsidiary under Korean accounting rules, because Naver is judged to control it

The rent

Naver Cloud pays usage fees tied to its revenue, guaranteed by Naver for up to 8 years

Naver says the guarantee itself involves no cash outflow. It is there to give Brookfield confidence the fees will be paid

The build

55 MW in the first half of 2027, 100 MW by end 2027, 200 MW in 2028

Tentative targets, still under negotiation. The first hub is Naver's Gak Sejong hyperscale data centre, with a long-run goal of a gigawatt across Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East

The chips

Nvidia supplies the GPUs and takes about $1bn of new Naver shares

Securing at least $9bn of computing infrastructure was a condition of Nvidia's share subscription. With the Brookfield deal signed, that condition is met

Why cash cares

The usual hyperscaler model is simple. The cloud company buys the chips and the buildings, books them as capital spending, and earns the money back by renting compute over the following years. Naver has split that in two. Brookfield's vehicle carries the purchase. Naver Cloud carries the customers and pays rent that rises and falls with its sales.

That shifts the shape of Naver's spending, not the size of the commitment. Naver does not have to find $9 billion of cash up front, and it can add capacity in steps as demand shows up. But it is not off the hook. Naver guarantees the usage fees for up to eight years, and because Naver controls the vehicle, it will sit inside Naver's consolidated accounts. Investors reading Naver's results should expect the assets, and the obligations that come with them, to show up on the group balance sheet even though Brookfield owns the vehicle.

The numbers are large for the size of the build. If all $9 billion maps onto the 200 MW planned by 2028, that is about $45 million per megawatt (our arithmetic). Part of that is chips, which wear out and lose value much faster than the building around them. That is why the fee link matters: if Naver Cloud's AI revenue disappoints, the rent shrinks with it, and part of the risk on fast-ageing GPUs sits with Brookfield.

Bar charts of Naver's AI factory plan: cumulative capacity of 55 MW in the first half of 2027, 100 MW by end 2027 and 200 MW in 2028; up to $9 billion from a Brookfield vehicle against about $1 billion of Nvidia equity; half the 2028 capacity live by end 2027; and a Naver guarantee on usage fees of up to eight years

Figure: Brookfield's money does most of the lifting, and half the planned capacity arrives in 2028. Figures from Naver's 27 October 2026 filing as reported by the Korea Herald, Dong-A Ilbo and Digital Today; percentage shares and cost per megawatt are our arithmetic.

The second-order read

Who gets paid. Nvidia first. It sells the GPUs that Brookfield's money buys, and its roughly $1 billion share purchase in Naver comes back to it as hardware orders. Brookfield earns a rental stream backed by an eight-year parent guarantee, which is close to the kind of contracted income infrastructure funds like to own. The builders and power suppliers around Gak Sejong get the first 55 MW of work.

Who carries the risk. Naver, more than the headline suggests. Fees are tied to revenue, but the guarantee and the consolidation mean a weak AI business would still land on Naver's accounts. Brookfield carries the residual value of the chips if demand fades after the guarantee runs out.

Who waits. Customers outside Korea. The filing names Europe and the Middle East as later steps, but every site past Gak Sejong still needs land, permits and grid power, and none has a date.

Stuck step. Power and permits at each new site. Naver's own filing lists overseas site approvals, delays in securing power and swings in AI hardware supply as the risks, and says the stage targets can move. The money is now in place. The megawatts are not.

Two cautions

The 55 MW, 100 MW and 200 MW stages are labelled tentative in the filing, and Naver says detailed contracts are still being negotiated. The $9 billion is a ceiling, not a cheque already written.

"Up to $9 billion" covers GPUs, data centres and other equipment together. The filing does not split it, so the cost per megawatt above is a rough guide, not a figure Naver gave.

What would change the view

  • A further filing setting out the fee formula, or what happens to the GPUs when the guarantee ends.
  • The first 55 MW slipping beyond the first half of 2027, which would show power or delivery is the binding limit.
  • A named overseas site with a power agreement, which would make the gigawatt goal concrete.

What to watch

  • Naver's next results, for how the consolidated vehicle changes reported assets and debt.
  • Completion of Nvidia's share subscription, which Naver says it will finish quickly.
  • Other Asian cloud companies copying the rent-not-buy model with infrastructure funds.

Read: the hyperscalers layer, who the hyperscalers are and how hyperscalers buy power

Get the Wire. A free brief every day, here and in your inbox. Subscribe free →

Not investment advice. Do your own research. Percentage shares and cost per megawatt are our arithmetic from Naver's disclosed figures.

References

  1. Naver, amended disclosure "장래사업ㆍ경영계획(공정공시)" (future business plan, fair disclosure), 27 Oct 2026
  2. Korea Herald, "Naver seals $9b Brookfield deal to finance AI factory", 27 Oct 2026
  3. Dong-A Ilbo, "네이버, 브룩필드와 12조 원 AI 인프라 계약" (Naver signs ₩12tn AI infrastructure deal with Brookfield), 27 Oct 2026
  4. Digital Today, "Naver signs $9 billion AI infrastructure deal with Brookfield, meets Nvidia investment condition", 27 Oct 2026

More Wire