Nvidia’s $1 Billion Naver Stake and $250 Billion Guarantee Talks Redraw the Lines Between Chipmaker and Financier
Published on 07/27/2026 at 14:41 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The line between chip supplier and infrastructure banker is blurring fast at Nvidia. Over the past week, the company has locked in a $1 billion equity stake in South Korean internet giant Naver, entered discussions to backstop as much as $250 billion in financing for an OpenAI data center in Ohio, and watched its biggest cloud customers ratchet up capital spending to levels that now outstrip their own operating cash flow.
The Naver deal, confirmed Monday in a regulatory filing in Seoul, gives Nvidia 7.24 million newly issued shares at 204,500 won each — a 4.5 percent stake that makes the chipmaker the third-largest shareholder behind South Korea’s National Pension Service and BlackRock. Naver will simultaneously cancel 4.9 million of its own shares, and payment is due by October 30. The investment is part of a broader $10 billion expansion plan for the GAK Sejong data center, co-financed by investment giant Brookfield, which is contributing up to $9 billion.
That facility is the operational heart of the partnership. Capacity is slated to rise from 55 megawatts in the first half of 2027 to 200 megawatts by 2028, with a long-term target of 1 gigawatt. The buildout will be powered by roughly 100,000 Nvidia graphics processors spanning the Vera Rubin and Blackwell generations. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon called the alliance a “major turning point,” while Nvidia chief Jensen Huang told KED Global that Naver could become “ten times larger” as a result. The Naver share price jumped roughly 10 percent on the news, and analysts cited by Herald Business see further upside to 450,000 won, projecting 14 trillion won in AI-factory revenue by 2032.
The deal was signed Friday at the AI Summit in San Francisco, with Monday’s filing serving as the formal administrative step. It also marks a strategic pivot: Nvidia is no longer just selling chips to hyperscalers but planting equity stakes in the companies that build the infrastructure around them.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nvidia?
That pattern repeats in Ohio. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Nvidia is in talks to provide a financing guarantee of up to $250 billion for a data center that OpenAI intends to lease in Pike County. The project, developed by SoftBank, would have 10 gigawatts of capacity and a total price tag exceeding $500 billion. A separate chip financing arrangement worth $350 billion is also under discussion. Power would come from a $33 billion gas plant under the oversight of the U.S. Commerce Department, with funding sourced partly from Japan. Reuters said it could not independently confirm the talks, which remain incomplete.
The structure has drawn sharp criticism. Investor Michael Burry, who has built a short position in Nvidia, described the arrangement as circular financing, according to Yahoo Finance. Commentator Ed Zitron called it “insane.” The concern is straightforward: a chipmaker underwriting the debt of its own customers creates a chain of obligations whose durability has never been tested.
Meanwhile, the big cloud providers are pouring money into the very hardware Nvidia sells. Alphabet raised its 2026 investment budget to between $195 billion and $205 billion, after its operating cash flow of $186 billion over twelve months fell short of planned spending — the company is taking on additional debt to close the gap. Amazon is planning roughly $200 billion for 2026, and Meta between $125 billion and $145 billion. A large share of that spending goes to Nvidia GPUs. Google’s cloud business grew 82 percent in the second quarter, a signal that demand for compute capacity remains intense.
On the software side, Nvidia over the weekend released updated PhysicsNeMo and CUDA-X libraries that equip AI agents with specialized physics capabilities, including accelerated solvers and quantum chemistry tools. The goal is to automate simulation, design, and verification cycles for next-generation semiconductors. Cadence, Siemens, and Synopsys are integrating the tools into their electronic design automation environments. On Nvidia’s own Vera CPUs, logic simulation and formal verification run up to 1.5 times faster — a meaningful gain for an industry trying to compress chip development from years into months.
At the stock level, the reaction has been muted. Nvidia shares closed Friday at €182.00, down 0.80 percent on the day, but up 13.55 percent year to date. The stock sits 9.56 percent above its 200-day moving average of €166.11, suggesting the long-term trend remains intact. The relative strength index of 52.6 points to neither overbought nor oversold conditions. The current price of €182.66 is 1.11 percent above the 50-day average of €180.66, though it remains 9.80 percent below the year’s high of €202.50.
Nvidia at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
Of the 53 analysts covering the stock, 48 rate it a buy, three a strong buy, and just two a hold. The average price target stands at $304.26, with JPMorgan at $280 and Rosenblatt at $325.
This week could bring the next catalyst. Microsoft and Meta both report quarterly results, and their capital expenditure plans for AI infrastructure will be closely watched. How high those budgets go will determine whether demand for Nvidia’s full stack — chips, software, and now financing — can sustain its current trajectory. For investors, the picture is increasingly layered: growing orders on one side, an ever more complex web of equity stakes and guarantees on the other, with risks that may take years to fully surface.
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