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Naver, the search engine group often called “South Korea’s Google”, is pitching its cloud services to countries in the Middle East and south-east Asia as an alternative AI option to US and Chinese technology giants.

Kim Yuwon, chief executive of Naver Cloud, said the company could be a strong alternative for countries reluctant to use American or Chinese cloud systems out of security concerns. The South Korean group can tailor AI services to individual countries and allow them to maintain control over their data, he said.

“Tech giants in the US and China are targeting bigger markets with their generic AI models. They don’t have much room for customised services for each country,” Kim told the Financial Times.

Amazon, Microsoft and Google dominate the cloud computing services crucial to AI, controlling more than 60 per cent of the global market, according to Synergy Research Group, while Alibaba and Tencent hold sway in China.

Countries concerned about Washington being able to access data stored in US companies’ cloud systems have embraced so-called sovereign AI, in which they build or adopt their own proprietary systems and store data locally for faster access and more control.

Naver argues it can be a preferable option for these countries, as it can offer control over more parts of the technology “stack”, ranging from data centres to applications, and “more autonomy” over data than US counterparts.

The company, which runs the most widely used search engine in South Korea, has been the largest purchaser of Nvidia chips in its home market, receiving more graphics processing units than Samsung or Hyundai as it aggressively builds AI infrastructure overseas.

Naver plans to invest more than Won1tn ($690mn) this year to expand its AI infrastructure, including securing 60,000 units of Nvidia’s most advanced Blackwell GPUs as part of South Korea’s plan to buy 260,000 chips from the US company.

It is running cloud regions in Germany, Japan, Singapore and the US west coast and planning more in Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and the US east coast. It is also building a 500MW data centre in Morocco to deliver sovereign AI capacity.

Naver’s stock has risen 20 per cent in the past 12 months on expectations for its AI services.

“Customisation is very important because each country has different social problems, political context, religious faiths and value systems,” said Kim, adding that the company was focused on markets in the Middle East and south-east Asia, as well as Japan.

In Saudi Arabia, it is working on “digital twins”, or virtual copies, of the country’s physical infrastructure in partnership with the National Housing Company. It is in early stage talks with the government and local partners to develop the country’s AI models, build data centres and provide cloud services.

In Thailand, it is working with Siam AI Cloud, a local tech group, to build a Thai language AI model and launch an AI-powered tourism assistant. In Japan, Naver is rolling out a service in which an AI system makes wellbeing calls to older adults in the city of Izumo, where 30 per cent of the population is over 65.

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Junhyun Kim, an analyst at HSBC, said in a report he expected Naver’s business of renting out GPUs to generate more than Won1tn in revenue by 2030, citing faster than expected commercialisation of technologies such as digital twins and AI cloud systems.

But Wi Jong-hyun, a business professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, said he was sceptical of Naver’s overseas ambitions, given its search engine is not widely used outside South Korea.

“Developing sovereign AI requires a lot of data from those countries. I am not sure how Naver plans to secure data at scale,” he said.

“Naver failed to export its search engine because it could not build its own database abroad. I am concerned that the company is likely to repeat its failure in exporting AI systems for the same reason.”