Nvidia's $50 Billion Data Center Lease Reignites 'Circular Financing' Debate

*Editor's Note: 'AI PRISM' (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an "AI-based customized news recommendation and summary service" developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six customized news items tailored to each reader type.

1. Nvidia Signs 73 Trillion Won Data Center Lease… 'Circular Financing' Debate Reignited

- Key Summary: Nvidia has signed a contract to lease for 15 years the entire 1GW data center that Hut 8 is building in Texas, the Financial Times (FT) reported. The contract is worth $19.6 billion and is expected to reach up to $50 billion (about 73 trillion won) over 30 years if renewed. Upon completion, the facility is planned to be subleased to neoclouds (emerging cloud operators) and used as an AI service hub. Based on this lease agreement, Hut 8 issued $4.3 billion in corporate bonds at an annual interest rate of 6.129% last June. Following the Wall Street Journal's (WSJ) earlier report on discussions over Nvidia's payment guarantees for OpenAI's Ohio project, this contract has now emerged, once again raising concerns over a circular financing structure in which funds are intertwined between AI chip manufacturers and their customers.

2. China Chip Phobia Sweeps the Market

- Key Summary: As concerns spread that China's self-sufficiency in semiconductor technology could arrive faster than expected, the KOSPI plunged 732.09 points (10.84%) from the previous trading day to close at 6,023.66 on the 28th. According to Reuters, Shanghai Aixingna Electronic Technology Group, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, is leading the mass production of immersion DUV (deep ultraviolet) lithography equipment and plans to supply five units this year and 20 next year to companies including ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT). In addition, Nvidia's large-scale financial guarantees highlighted the circular financing controversy, acting as a compounding negative factor, and semiconductor stocks such as Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) (-13.39%) and SK hynix (000660.KS) (-14.65%) were dealt a direct blow. On this day, sell-side sidecars and circuit breakers were triggered simultaneously in both the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets for the third time this year, and the KOSPI's market capitalization was found to have evaporated by nearly 2,000 trillion won this month alone.

3. U.S. 'Power Shortage Relief,' Korea 'Commercial Rationality'… Interests Align

- Key Summary: The government is reviewing the construction of an LNG (liquefied natural gas) combined-cycle power plant in Texas as the first project in a $200 billion investment initiative in the United States. As power demand in the U.S. surges due to the spread of AI data centers, data center power demand is projected to grow to 426 TWh (terawatt-hours) by 2030 — twice last year's level — accounting for 9% of total power demand. While 42% of data center capacity is concentrated in Texas and Virginia, stable power supply is difficult due to a shortage of power plants and transmission grid bottlenecks. Solar and wind power are difficult to operate around the clock, and nuclear plants take more than eight years to build, making LNG power generation a realistic alternative. If Korea signs power purchase agreements (PPAs) with U.S. power-consuming companies, it can secure stable revenue, and the interests of the two countries are seen as aligning.

4. DUV Mass Production Would Narrow Tech Gap Further… CXMT's Commodity DRAM Share Takes Off

- Key Summary: As China moves into mass production of immersion DUV (deep ultraviolet) equipment in lithography — the only area of the semiconductor value chain where it had not achieved self-sufficiency — a sense of crisis is growing in the Korean, U.S. and Japanese semiconductor industries. According to TrendForce, China has already secured self-sufficiency rates in the 50-60% range in deposition, etching and cleaning, but its lithography self-sufficiency rate had been nonexistent, while Chinese equipment makers such as NAURA are also growing rapidly. This DUV volume — five units this year and 20 next year — is minuscule compared to ASML's supply last year (131 units), and with its performance unverified, some point out it is too early to view it as an achievement of technological self-sufficiency. However, Chinese media forecast that China's mid-tier commodity DRAM self-sufficiency rate, currently 8%, will rise to 30% by 2028, centered on CXMT.

5. Mirae Asset Global Investments Ranks 11th Among Global ETF Managers… 'Killer Product' Pays Off

- Key Summary: Mirae Asset Global Investments' global ETF net assets surpassed 425 trillion won, rising to become the world's 11th and Asia's second-largest ETF manager according to ETFGI's tally. While the industry's average annual growth rate over the past decade was 21.7%, Mirae Asset Global Investments recorded a growth rate of 37.4%, and its U.S. subsidiary Global X US surpassed $100 billion in net assets. Global X's assets under management, which stood at about 8 trillion won when acquired in 2018, have now grown to about 150 trillion won, and its European subsidiary posted an average annual growth rate of 223% over the past five years. The net assets of the domestic TIGER ETF brand also surpassed $100 billion, supporting the group's overall global expansion.

6. MS: '90% of Chinese Hacker Attacks Last Year Were AI… 15,000 Per Second, Humans Can't Block Them'

- Key Summary: Microsoft (MS) unveiled its agent-based security platform 'Project Perception' and its own dedicated security AI agent 'MAI-Cyber-1 Flash,' presenting defensive AI to counter AI attacks. According to MS, when the model is used together with GPT-5.4, its CyberGym benchmark score reached 95.95%, exceeding OpenAI's GPT-5.5 Cyber (85.6%) and Anthropic's Mythos5 (83.8%). Hyatt Gallo, MS Executive Vice President (EVP) of the security division, said 90% of Chinese hacker attacks last year were carried out by AI, and that agents processed 15,000 requests per second — a scale humans could not handle. Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of MS's AI division, noted in an interview with the FT that as AI models grow more powerful, the principle of proactive prevention will become more important.