AI TRENDS | Brookfield Leads South Korea’s First $8 Billion GPU Financing

According to Jin10, global investment firm Brookfield appointed KB Kookmin Bank as lead arranger for South Korea’s largest-ever syndicated loan, a 10.7 trillion won ($8 billion) facility to fund AI chip purchases for NAVER. KB Kookmin Bank said in a statement on Sunday that the funds would finance AI computing infrastructure, including GPUs. The loan is part of a 12.6 trillion won financing package and marks South Korea’s first large-scale GPU financing deal. The AI chips will be provided to NAVER Cloud under a long-term lease. Banks and private credit funds in Asia are expanding AI financing beyond data center construction to include hardware such as chips that provide computing capacity.