Naver targets South American AI infrastructure market with Brazil, Chile meetings

Naver held a series of meetings with major AI companies in South America during President Lee Jae Myung's regional tour, securing what the company described as a foothold for entering the continent's AI infrastructure market.

Naver said Tuesday that its executives met with leaders of local AI firms throughout Lee's three-country South America tour. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, Chief Strategy Officer Koo Dong-hyun and Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yu-won joined the trip as members of the economic delegation accompanying the president.

In Brazil — the first stop on the tour — the Naver executives held back-to-back meetings with the leadership of Scala Data Centers (SDC) and Tecto Data Centers (TDC), both of which operate large-scale AI data center and cloud businesses in the country.

SDC is developing the "Scala AI City" project, which aims to build a massive AI data center (AIDC) campus with an ultimate capacity of 4.75 GW in Eldorado do Sul in southern Brazil. TDC, meanwhile, is pursuing the TGRU1 project to construct a high-density, AI-focused data center with a capacity of up to 200 MW in Santana de Parnaíba in greater São Paulo.

Naver, SDC and TDC discussed the possibility of Naver directly operating GPU and AI cloud services within each company's AIDC. The parties are also exploring a joint business model under which Naver would sell compute capacity to companies and AI startups in Brazil and neighboring countries.

The executives also exchanged views on a technology and operations partnership for AIDC development, drawing on Naver's experience running its Chuncheon and Sejong data centers without interruption, its expertise in high-efficiency liquid cooling, and its track record managing gigawatt-scale AIDC projects.

According to Naver, the SDC and TDC executives spoke highly of the company's "full-stack AI" capabilities — spanning data centers, GPU clusters, AI platforms, and its own proprietary models and services — across every layer of the AI factory.

In Chile, the Naver executives met with leadership at Entel, the country's largest telecommunications company, which also operates digital solution businesses including enterprise security, cloud and Internet of Things services. The two sides discussed potential cooperation across several areas, including software-as-a-service (SaaS) distribution, smart city projects and GPU cluster development.

The Naver executives also met with senior Chilean government officials, including Vice Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Carolina Rosi, National AI Center Secretary-General Rodrigo Duran, and Eduardo Munt, chief of staff to the vice minister of finance.

At the meetings, Naver introduced AI solutions that Naver Cloud operates in the public sector, including Naver Works — a pan-government intelligent work management platform — and Clova CareCall, an AI-powered welfare check phone service. Chile's government is currently exploring projects to advance public-sector AI adoption under its Digital Government Strategy 2030.

According to Naver, Chilean government officials took note of the company's position as a large-scale GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS) provider and a potential leader in sovereign AI business. They also asked Naver to consider participating in Chile's own sovereign AI and computing infrastructure initiatives.

"South America is emerging as a new hub for global AI infrastructure, driven by its abundant energy resources and rapidly growing digital demand," Choi said. "This tour gave us the opportunity to identify concrete areas where Naver's full-stack AI technology and operational experience can be applied in partnership with local governments and leading companies. We will follow up through working-level discussions and make a meaningful contribution to building AI infrastructure across the region."