Inside Naver: How Korea’s Leading Tech Giant Is Shaping the Future

While Naver may not be a household name in the Western world, it’s an essential part of everyday life for most Koreans. In fact, it’s hard to overstate its significance. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, this homegrown Korean powerhouse started as a simple search engine and has evolved into a sprawling ecosystem of services that touch nearly every aspect of its users’ lives. From AI and robotics to healthcare, digital education, and entertainment, Naver has become the beating heart of Korean digital society.

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A Homegrown Search Engine at the Core

Naver’s journey began as a search engine—one that stood resilient and independent in a world largely dominated by Google. Apart from China and Russia, South Korea is the only nation where a local search engine prevails as the market leader. Today, Naver is woven into the daily routines of millions of citizens, offering not just information, but life-essential services that cater to their every need.

While traditionally recognized for its B2C products, Naver’s ambitions stretch far beyond consumer services. The company is now making major strides with its B2B offering, Naver Cloud, focusing heavily on hyperscale AI solutions. Their in-house AI technology—HyperCLOVA X—aims to power domestic businesses, and with it, Naver has positioned itself as a pioneer in Korean-language large language models. At a time when many countries rely on foreign AI giants, Naver’s localized solution outperforms global competitors in the Korean market, delivering specialized, culturally attuned results that set a new standard for digital experiences.

From a Super App to a Robot-Friendly Building

A key part of this future-forward vision is embodied in Naver’s 1784 building, a true testbed for cutting-edge innovation. This high-tech facility is recognized as the world’s first “robot-friendly” building, where drones and autonomous devices navigate its halls, transporting packages and even servers between floors. Naver has developed a range of solutions that seamlessly integrate into everyday operations:

• Naver Cloud & Works: Beyond being a leader in consumer internet services, Naver’s cloud platform supports businesses of all sizes. Their Works app suite, accessible through their “super app,” has become indispensable for over 500,000 companies and millions of users. Positioned as a competitor to tools like Microsoft Teams, Works is the all-in-one collaboration and productivity solution tailored to the local market. It’s the number one player in both Korea and Japan, and Naver is steadily expanding into Southeast Asia.
• Whale Browser & Education: Naver’s Whale browser is not just another web browser; it’s also a platform for digital learning in classrooms. By bundling educational tools within a user-friendly browser, Whale is becoming a cornerstone of digital education in Korea, offering teachers and students seamless access to online resources and interactive learning materials.

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Naver Labs: Bridging the Physical and Digital Worlds

Naver’s ambition doesn’t stop at the cloud—it’s also making significant leaps in robotics, AI, and spatial computing. The research and development arm, Naver Labs, is dedicated to forging new connections between the physical and digital realms. Inside the 1784 building, the ARC system (AI, Robotics, Cloud) acts as the backbone that powers everything from delivery robots to indoor localization technology.

The building itself is a living laboratory: robots move seamlessly through hallways, transporting packages and even servers. Systems like Haro (horizontal movement) and Sero (vertical movement) autonomously relocate servers in Naver’s data centers. In a nod to the “megacity-scale” digital twin initiatives, Naver is creating hyper-accurate 3D models of cities—both indoors and outdoors—to an astonishing precision of less than 16 centimeters. This digital twin technology could redefine urban planning, logistics, and navigation, requiring no GPS to achieve highly accurate localization.

Naver’s collaborations also extend beyond Korea’s borders. They’re working with world-class institutions like MIT on open-source projects such as the Mini Cheetah robot and continuing to refine their AI systems for broader applications. The ultimate goal? To launch commercial robots and advanced AI solutions that can thrive not just in Korea but on the global stage.

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Going Global, One Step at a Time

While Naver remains firmly rooted in Korea, its ambitions are increasingly global. With 15,000 employees worldwide—3,000 at the Green Factory, 5,000 at the 1784 building, and the rest abroad—Naver is steadily expanding its global footprint. Its success in Japan’s enterprise market shows that the company can compete internationally. The next step is Southeast Asia, where it hopes to replicate this success and build strong relationships with local businesses.

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Conclusion: A Glimpse of the Future

Visiting Naver was nothing short of inspiring. Here is a company that refuses to be pigeonholed as a mere search engine. Instead, it aims to solve some of society’s biggest challenges—loneliness, education, urban congestion—through technology. With hyperscale AI, robotics, digital twins, and a relentless focus on innovation, Naver represents the kind of future-focused thinking that’s making Korea an emerging epicenter of global tech.

For nexxworks, the visit underscored the importance of looking beyond familiar tech ecosystems. As digital transformation continues to unfold worldwide, Naver’s story is a reminder that true innovation can—and does—thrive in unexpected places, reshaping how we think about technology’s role in our everyday lives.

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