[Click eStock] "Naver Expected to Benefit from AI Re-Rating... Maintains Top Pick"

On November 3, DS Investment & Securities maintained its target price for Naver at 400,000 won and its top pick rating for the sector, stating, "The likelihood of an AI re-rating has significantly increased, thanks to joint development of a 'physical artificial intelligence (AI)' platform with Nvidia."

On October 31, Naver signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Nvidia to jointly develop a physical AI platform. Nvidia has agreed to supply a total of 260,000 GPUs to major Korean conglomerates, including Naver, Samsung, SK, and Hyundai Motor, by 2030. Among these, Naver has secured 60,000 Blackwell GPUs, the largest allocation for a single company.

Naver is the only company in Korea to possess a full-stack AI infrastructure (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, AI models). However, it has previously experienced an AI de-rating phase due to underperformance in AI capabilities and a weak external cloud market share. The recent GPU acquisition is expected to directly contribute to improving Naver’s proprietary AI model performance and expanding its AX-based infrastructure business. Choi Seungho, a researcher at DS Investment & Securities, explained, "Even if only 30-40% of the secured GPUs are leased, it could contribute around 1.2 trillion won in revenue, and the scale of AX is expected to far exceed this."

He added, "This collaboration with Nvidia could shift the paradigm from a service-centric to an infrastructure-centric approach," and evaluated that "the AI revenue surge will accelerate the re-rating scenario in earnest."

Naver is not only on the verge of winning a local digital twin project worth about 800 billion won in Saudi Arabia, but is also expected to accelerate AX orders in security-sensitive industries such as energy and defense. Choi noted, "Securing references, in addition to simply increasing order volume, is significant," and judged that "the scale of global orders is highly likely to grow to the trillion-won level in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.