Naver chairman to meet Nvidia's Jensen Huang as company bets big on defense AI

Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin is making a bold push into AI, designating defense AI as a core next-generation business and establishing a dedicated organization to pursue the security market. Amid that drive, Lee is set to meet Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Thursday.

The two companies have steadily expanded their cooperation around sovereign AI. With Nvidia's GPUs and AI infrastructure potentially serving as a key foundation for defense AI, industry watchers are closely following how far the two sides will advance their collaboration on defense AI, physical AI and AI infrastructure at the upcoming meeting.

Naver Cloud said Sunday it is launching a dedicated task force for defense AX — AI transformation.

This marks the first time Naver has formed an AI organization focused exclusively on defense. Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yu-won will personally lead the defense AX task force.

A defining feature of the task force is its front-line deployment of Field Deployment Engineers, or FDEs — specialists who design and implement tailored AI solutions directly at defense sites. FDEs support the construction and operation of AI systems on-site, a model also associated with how U.S. firm Palantir expanded its work with defense and intelligence agencies. The task force will operate as a cross-functional unit, with teams covering AI model development and business development working in close collaboration.

Naver plans to deliver AI solutions tailored to the defense and security environment, drawing on its proprietary foundation models, cloud infrastructure and sovereign AI capabilities. The company is also pursuing the application of omnimodal AI technology — which can combine and reason across text, images, audio and other data types — to the defense sector.

Earlier, Seong Nak-ho, Naver Cloud's head of hyperscale AI technology, said at the "Naver Cloud Public AX Strategy Seminar" held in Sejong in April that Naver Cloud is "the only domestic company with omnimodal AI capabilities that can combine and reason across diverse data types including text, images and audio," adding that the company would "concentrate its capabilities on analyzing complex battlefield situations and supporting the military's strategic decision-making."

Industry observers see the task force's creation as a strategic decision by Naver to secure technological self-reliance and data sovereignty in the defense sector. Chairman Lee is also lending his personal weight to the effort. On Thursday, he will meet Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who is traveling to South Korea after completing his schedule at Nvidia's annual AI event in Taiwan. The industry is watching whether the meeting will serve as a catalyst for fleshing out Naver's strategies in defense AI, physical AI and AI infrastructure.

Lee has already met Huang multiple times in recent years in South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere to discuss AI cooperation. As a result, the two companies agreed in October last year to jointly develop a physical AI platform. In late May, Madison Huang — Jensen Huang's eldest daughter and a senior director at Nvidia — visited Naver's 1784 headquarters in Seoul for in-depth discussions on technology and business cooperation.

During what the industry has dubbed the first "Ganbu meeting" — referring to Huang's visit to South Korea in October last year — Naver received an allocation of 60,000 GPUs, 10,000 more than the 50,000 each allocated to Samsung Electronics, SK Corp and Hyundai Motor Group.

Naver holds its own large language model HyperCLOVA X, along with cloud infrastructure, digital twin and robotics technology. Analysts say combining these assets with Nvidia's GPUs and industrial AI platform could broaden the scope of cooperation beyond sovereign AI to encompass physical AI and defense AI as well.