Both chip companies have not been established for a long time, Rebellions was founded in 2020 and Sapeon Korea was founded in 2022, but both companies have the support of South Korean technology giants behind them.
Among them, the former formed an alliance with Samsung, KT, and Kakao, while the latter was spun off by SK Telecom, the largest telecommunications company in South Korea.
Holding two major Korean conglomerates, Samsung and SK, the new company's goal is very clear: to challenge the global AI chip leader NVIDIA.
AI chip startups merge, Korean semiconductor looks forward to breaking through
As for the current semiconductor industry in South Korea, it is basically difficult to find a well-known chip company besides Samsung and SK Hynix leading the memory market. Behind this, the monopoly of the market by conglomerates such as Samsung is an important factor.
At present, South Korean semiconductors have fallen into the "TOP2 curse" of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and the fate of emerging semiconductor companies is either due to competition and bankruptcy by these two giants, or waiting for acquisition.
Even if they survive, their size and scale are far inferior to those of similar foreign enterprises, making it difficult to form an industrial cluster. Therefore, for a long time, Korean semiconductors have had little presence in areas other than memory.
In recent years, with the South Korean government continuously announcing support plans for the semiconductor industry, startups have finally found a ground for growth.
In addition, after the launch of ChatGPT, the global semiconductor industry has become embroiled in fierce competition for AI chips, and the local AI chip market in South Korea has also become hot. A group of young AI chip companies have emerged, with Rebellions and Sapeon Korea being among the top players.
According to public information, Rebellions was founded in 2020 and mainly produces Neural Processing Units (NPUs). Its main product is the AI chip Atom for data centers, which is positioned directly against Nvidia.
Last April, Atom AI chips submitted results in the internationally authoritative AI benchmark MLPerf. Tests have shown that the performance of this chip is 1.5-2 times higher than that of Nvidia and Qualcomm of the same specifications, which has attracted widespread attention. Rebellions stated that the price of Atom chips is approximately 1/10 of that of Nvidia GPU A100.
After winning the $124 million Series B financing led by KT in January this year, Rebellions is also advancing the development of AI chip Rebel.
Sapeon Korea is a subsidiary of SK Telecom, the largest telecommunications company in South Korea. It was spun off in April 2022 and specializes in designing AI chips for data centers. The latest product is TSMC's 7nm X330 chip, and the previous generation X220 is also South Korea's first artificial intelligence processor for data centers. It is SK Group's pioneering work in AI semiconductor business.
SK Telecom stated in a statement that this integration aims to enable South Korea to win the global AI semiconductor market in the next two to three years. With the intensification of global artificial intelligence competition, South Korea must not miss this time window.
The merged company will seek to gain a strong position through NPU, and Rebellions will be responsible for managing the merged entity.
The statement also stated that due to the penetration rate of artificial intelligence in various applications, the merger is expected to be signed in the third quarter of this year, and the merged company will be launched by the end of this year.
Why not choose to unite instead of fighting separately?
Seemingly a merger between Rebellions and Sapeon, it is actually a collaboration between Samsung and SK.
From the current development status, although the chip technology and growth rate of these startups are worthy of attracting the attention of investors and the market, they still face the test of lack of funds and talent.
In addition, like some previous semiconductor startups, AI chip companies also face the risk of being acquired and going bankrupt.
However, based on existing signals, against the backdrop of strong support from the South Korean government for the local industry chain, technology giants are gradually changing their strategies, hoping to expand the integrity of the entire industry chain by cultivating startups and gradually attract the return of South Korean talents.
In addition, the ultimate goal of the South Korean government in the field of AI is to surpass American semiconductor giant Nvidia.
But currently, Samsung's strategy is to choose to avoid NVIDIA's sharpness and take a different path from the edge, while SK Hynix's energy is mainly focused on HBM memory and has no ability to handle AI chips.
In this way, Korean semiconductors still need a strong chip to shoulder the banner of AI chips, and the new company formed by the merger of Rebellions and Sapeon may be used to play this role.
Overall, Nvidia's advantage in the field of AI chips is increasing, but at the same time, the demand in the AI market is also expanding.
Amidst fierce competition among AI chip companies around the world, there are always ambitious individuals who want to challenge Nvidia's position.
