S Korea Awards $1.1B GPU Contract to 3 Cloud Providers

Sejong, South Korea – The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on Tuesday that it has selected Naver Cloud, NHN Cloud, and Kakao for a KRW 1.46 trillion (US$1.1 billion) graphics processing unit procurement program.

The three companies will acquire 13,000 GPUs consisting of 10,080 NVIDIA B200 units and 3,056 H200 units, the ministry said.

The government will access 10,456 units while companies retain 2,680 units for their operations.

The ministry conducted selection procedures from May to June, including public solicitation, proposal evaluation, data center inspections, and budget deliberations.

Naver Cloud will procure 3,056 H200 GPUs using Hopper architecture. The government will access 2,296 units configured in 255-node and 32-node clusters. The company plans to provide services by year-end.

NHN Cloud will acquire 7,656 B200 GPUs using BlackWell architecture with liquid cooling systems.

The government allocation includes 6,120 units arranged in 510-node and 255-node clusters. The company will launch beta services before the end of the year, with 510-node clustering planned for 2026.

Kakao will secure 2,424 B200 GPUs. The government will access 2,040 units in a 255-node cluster configuration. The company indicated it will launch beta services within the year.

According to ministry specifications, B200 units provide 2.25 times the computational performance of H200 units based on FP8 Tensor Core measurements.

The companies agreed to cooperate on an integrated online platform for GPU resource applications and allocation to academic and research organizations, the ministry said.

GPU distribution to institutions is expected to begin by year-end, according to the ministry.

The procurement supports the government's AI Foundation Model Project and other national artificial intelligence programs.

Science and ICT Minister Bae Kyoung-hoon said the procurement represents "a catalyst for insufficient AI computing infrastructure in the country and the starting point for accelerating innovation across the domestic AI ecosystem."

The ministry anticipates finalizing contracts and issuing procurement orders in August.

($1 = KRW 1,327.50)