Reports emerged Friday that NVIDIA and South Korea's SK Group signed letters of intent for a partnership valued at over $500 billion, covering everything from massive data center construction to long-term memory chip supply. NVDA shares closed at $206.80, valuing the company at $5.09 trillion with a price-to-earnings ratio of roughly 32. The deal arrived amid a broader week of deal-making — the Korea agreements are the latest in a year-long investment spree in which NVIDIA has committed more than $40 billion to AI equity positions, including $30 billion in OpenAI. For shareholders, the question is whether this blitz of partnerships translates into durable revenue or simply inflates headline numbers.
The Headline Number Hides a Two-Way Money Flow. The $500 billion figure includes money NVIDIA will spend buying memory chips from SK hynix, as well as purchases by SK Group of NVIDIA's supercomputers — "between us, we're going to do half a trillion dollars' worth of business," CEO Jensen Huang said.
Huang didn't disclose how the figure was calculated or over what time period. Investors should treat this as a long-term commercial relationship, not a single purchase order.
Securing Scarce Memory Protects NVIDIA's Margins. SK hynix held approximately 58% of the global high-bandwidth memory market by revenue in Q1 2026 — this specialized stacked memory is essential for every NVIDIA AI chip. NVIDIA is aggressively securing supply of high-bandwidth memory as the AI boom has created a global memory shortage. Locking in supply means NVIDIA can ship systems on schedule rather than lose orders to component bottlenecks, directly protecting its ~63% profit margin.
The $1 Billion NAVER Bet Raises Familiar Questions. NVIDIA's $1 billion investment will allow South Korean internet company NAVER to more than triple its data center from 55 megawatts to 200 megawatts , running on NVIDIA hardware. Critics have expressed concern that such moves represent artificial inflation of demand, describing them as circular deals — NVIDIA funds a company that then buys NVIDIA products. The math works only if NAVER generates real AI revenue from that capacity.
A 2-Gigawatt Data Center Is a Bet on Asia-Pacific Demand. The deal's centerpiece, a 2-gigawatt AI factory built by SK Telecom, exceeds what most national power grids allocate to any single industrial tenant.
The agreement signals that massive AI infrastructure buildouts are moving beyond a handful of hyperscalers , broadening NVIDIA's customer base into telecom conglomerates and sovereign projects — a meaningful diversification if it materializes by the 2027 target.