[Digital Today reporter Lee Ho-jung] Team Naver is moving to expand cooperation with French companies and institutions in AI infrastructure, industry-focused AI and content. It is proposing an AI factory aimed at the European market and also pursuing AI technology cooperation with local research institutions.

Naver said on Sept. 9 that CEO Choi Soo-yeon (최수연) and Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yoo-won (김유원) met executives from local media, IT, energy, mobility and finance companies during President Lee Jae-myung’s trip to France to discuss cooperation plans.

At a Korea-France business roundtable held on Sept. 8 (local time), Choi presented global AI infrastructure, industry-focused AI and cultural content as key areas for cooperation.

In AI infrastructure, Naver introduced its plan to build a global AI factory of more than 1 gigawatt that it is pursuing with Nvidia and Brookfield. It proposed jointly building an AI factory that European companies and startups can use by combining France’s energy infrastructure with Naver’s AI operations experience.

It also presented cooperation on industry-focused AI. Naver is developing a finance-focused AI, BOKI, with the Bank of Korea, and a nuclear power plant-focused AI, Hy-NuRI, with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power that is operated separately from external networks. Naver plans to use that experience for building sector-by-sector AI for French companies and institutions.

In content, it is seeking to expand cooperation based on Naver Webtoon’s business in France. Naver Webtoon has released more than 70 original works in France and has secured more than 2 million readers. Naver plans to support overseas distribution and expansion of works by creators in both countries using its webtoon platform and its copyright-protection AI, ToontRader, among other tools.

Choi also attended the Lumiere Summit, an international film and video summit held in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, on Sept. 7. There, she introduced a $100 million IP adaptation fund created by Naver and Webtoon Entertainment.

The fund was set up to invest in expanding intellectual property such as webtoons into film, animation and games. Naver plans to directly invest in the process of creators’ IP expanding into global content through the fund.

Naver signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with the French National Audiovisual Institute, or INA, for AI technology cooperation. The two sides plan to jointly research ways to apply Naver’s AI technology to INA’s audiovisual cultural heritage archive for content analysis and classification, and for data search and use.

Naver has used France as a base for AI research and investment in Europe. At Naver Labs Europe in Grenoble, France, it is researching robotics AI and multimodal foundation models, among other areas. It is also cooperating with French AI company Mistral AI, in which it invested in 2024, on sovereign AI for manufacturing.