On January 30, Rebellions, a South Korean startup specializing in AI chips, made headlines with its announcement of a significant funding roundThe company has successfully raised an impressive $124 million in Series B financing, marking a step that aims to accelerate the research and development of its next-generation AI chip, dubbed "Rebel," designed specifically to cater to the demands of large language modelsOriginally setting a target of $90 million, the oversubscription indicates a strong investor interest in Rebellions' innovative approach to AI technologyThis new capital infusion will not only expedite the production of its data center chip Atom but will also facilitate recruitment efforts, enhancing the company's operational capabilities.

A notable player in this funding round was KT Corporation, a leading telecommunications company in South Korea, which acted as a strategic investor, leading the series B investment

Other participants included various high-profile firms such as Singapore's Temasek, the Korea Development Bank, France's Koreyla Capital, and Japan's DGDV, reflecting a broad interest from global investors in Rebellions' potentialWith this round, Rebellions' total funding to date has reached approximately $210 million, pushing its valuation beyond $650 million.

Rebellions was co-founded in September 2020 by a team of chip experts with extensive backgrounds in giants like Samsung, SK Hynix, Intel, and IBMThe startup launched its inaugural AI chip, Ion, in November 2021, which was tailored for edge computing and has found widespread adoption among various Wall Street investment firmsThis innovative spirit is a hallmark of Rebellions, which has set its sights on lofty ambitionsAccording to CEO Park Sung-hyun, the ultimate goal is to become “the NVIDIA of Korea and the next Samsung in the advanced logic chip market.”

In a remarkable development last October, Rebellions formed a strategic partnership with Samsung to collaboratively develop the next-generation AI chip aimed at the generative AI market, named Rebel

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The development of the Rebel chip is expected to be completed in the latter half of this year, with mass production slated to begin in 2025.

The Rebel chip is set to be manufactured using Samsung’s cutting-edge 4nm process technology and will incorporate the advanced memory technology of HBM3eRebellions appears to have a unique selling proposition: its technology and products exhibit a greater generality compared to custom AI chips, which allows them to support a wide array of generative AI models.

Rebellions' focus on practical application is evident with its Atom chip, which has recently been installed by KT Cloud, a subsidiary of KT Corporation, in its cloud-based neural processing unit (NPU) infrastructureThis deployment promises to offer a cloud service for enterprises in need of language and image processing capabilities, leveraging a powerful NPU infrastructure boasting 8.9 PFLOPS

Key advantages of this partnership include commercialization of KT’s large-scale AI model called Mideum, built upon locally produced AI chips.

The Atom chip is also recognized as Korea’s first chip for large language models, designed specifically for data centers and language models with 7 billion parameters, while the upcoming Rebel will cater to even larger modelsRebellions anticipates generating revenue from Atom in the latter half of this year, while continuing to produce the chip using Samsung’s 5nm process.

The Atom chip's prowess was validated last April when it achieved remarkable results in the internationally recognized AI benchmark MLPerfThe findings indicated that Atom's inference performance surpassed that of Qualcomm’s Cloud AI 100 and NVIDIA's equivalent A2 and T4 GPUs by a staggering 1.5 to 2 times, garnering significant global attention

At that time, Rebellions highlighted that Atom’s cost was roughly one-tenth of NVIDIA’s GPU A100, marking a considerable advantage in pricing.

Looking ahead, Samsung aims to establish a cloud-based AI service platform leveraging domestic AI chips by 2025 and to expand into global marketsIn June 2022, the South Korean government unveiled plans to invest approximately 12 trillion won over the next five years into AI research and development, with an ambitious goal to increase the domestic AI chip market share in local data centers to 80% by 2030.

The financing success of Rebellions comes at a pivotal moment for the AI chip industryThe market leader, NVIDIA, has thrived in part due to a carefully constructed moat around its hardware and software ecosystemTheir GPUs are widely utilized globally, bolstered by a rich software environment ranging from deep learning frameworks to a variety of AI application development tools, creating significant barriers for competitors

As foundational models and generative AI applications become more widespread, there’s an intensifying focus on crucial factors like data processing speed and cost control, presenting new opportunities for breakthroughs among other players in the field.

Major tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft have also taken keen notice of these trends, diving into the realm of self-developed AI chips to integrate them seamlessly into their products and services, thereby boosting their competitive edgeRecently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited South Korea, meeting with both Samsung and SK Hynix, reportedly discussing a potentially massive multi-billion-dollar investment aimed at establishing a global AI chip production networkThis flurry of activity is set to further stir the dynamics of the AI chip market, escalating competition while simultaneously presenting emerging enterprises like Rebellions with fresh challenges and opportunities.

In conclusion, as a rising player in Korea's AI chip sector, Rebellions boasts robust funding, a strong technical team, strategic partners, and distinctive products, confidently racing ahead in the AI chip race