Naver widens France AI ties with Europe-focused factory push

Naver is seeking to deepen its artificial intelligence (AI) ties with France, proposing cooperation on AI infrastructure, industry-specific systems and cultural content during President Lee Jae Myung's visit to the country. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon and Naver Cloud CEO Kim Yu-won met with executives from French companies and institutions in media, information technology, energy, mobility and finance during Lee’s visit. Choi outlined three areas for cooperation at Korea-France Business Roundtable in France on Tuesday: global AI infrastructure, industry-specific AI built around data sovereignty and security, and cultural content. She said Naver wanted to combine France’s stable energy infrastructure with its experience in building AI ecosystems to develop AI factories that European companies and startups could use. Naver recently announced plans with Nvidia and Brookfield to build more than 1 gigawatt of global AI factory capacity. Choi also pointed to Naver’s work developing AI systems tailored to finance and nuclear power, including BOKI with Bank of Korea and Hy-NuRI with Korea Hydro