Naver Cloud and Coupang have once again joined a government project this year despite the slim prospects for profit. There is one reason. Their real objective is to formally prove, through government verification, that they can operate large-scale GPU infrastructure. By contrast, Kakao and NHN Cloud, which were selected as project operators last year, did not file applications this year. Industry sources said companies that have not fully moved into the GPU-as-a-Service business saw little reason to take on additional costs.
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According to industry sources, five companies applied by April 13 for the Ministry of Science and ICT’s 2026 project to secure, build and operate GPU infrastructure: Naver Cloud, Coupang, KT Cloud, Samsung SDS and Elice Group.
The project calls for the government to support the acquisition of about 10,000 GPUs with 2.0805 trillion won in funding. The final operators will connect the secured GPUs into clusters and supply them to industry, academia and research institutes.
The industry does not see the tender as a simple equipment procurement program. It sees it as a process for evaluating large-scale GPU operating capabilities. Multiple industry officials said the government repeatedly stressed at the project briefing that it would look not only at procurement capacity but also at actual GPU and infrastructure operating capabilities.
NIPA’s recruitment notice in fact specifies that applicants must be companies capable of providing and operating GPU-as-a-Service, or GPUaaS, in Korea. It also requires them to submit sales and operating records for the relevant business over the past three years.
A frequently mentioned factor in that process is “deployable data center space.” This does not mean ordinary floor area inside a data center. It refers to space where GPU servers can be densely installed and put into operation immediately. It also requires high-density power supply and cooling facilities capable of handling the heat load. That is why the government appears to be evaluating such space separately and conducting on-site inspections.
Both Naver Cloud and Coupang had already been working to secure sufficient deployable space well before this year’s tender notice. On April 1, Naver Cloud signed a 600 billion won lease agreement with LG CNS for data center space at the Samsong data center in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. Coupang said it operates data centers in Seoul and the greater metropolitan area equipped with advanced infrastructure.
Naver Cloud and Coupang have also been running GPUaaS as an actual business since last year. Both companies are Nvidia Cloud Partners, or NCPs. They are the only two NCPs in Korea. An NCP is a company that provides GPU cloud services as a commercial business within Nvidia’s ecosystem.
Including GPUaaS revenue, Naver posted 587.8 billion won in enterprise revenue last year, up 4.3 percent from a year earlier. Choi Soo-yeon, chief executive of Naver, said during a February earnings conference call that “customer acquisition for GPUaaS is progressing smoothly.” Coupang, for its part, rebranded its AI cloud computing service as Coupang Intelligent Cloud, or CIC, in July last year and has been running its own GPUaaS business.
That is also seen as the reason why Kakao and NHN Cloud, which were selected as GPU supply operators last year, did not apply again this year. The main benefit of being chosen as a GPU supply operator is the track record of having run a large-scale GPU cluster. For a GPUaaS provider, that kind of record underpins service reliability. By contrast, industry sources said companies that are not running a GPUaaS business, or have made only limited related investment, have little reason to absorb additional costs to secure deployable data center space. The difficulty of making a profit on a public-sector project was also cited as part of the rationale.
Multiple industry officials said, “It is still too early to know who will be selected, but we understand that the government will place importance on experience actually operating a large-scale GPU cluster in a production environment,” adding, “For companies seeking to expand their GPUaaS business, a record of being selected as a GPU supply operator would itself help in B2B sales.”
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