Samsung invests $150M in Rebellions as South Korea targets AI chip market

South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions has secured investment from Samsung as part of a $150-200 million funding round ahead of its planned IPO. The startup, which merged with Sapeon last year to create a potential Nvidia rival, is collaborating with Samsung to manufacture its AI inference chips using cutting-edge 4-nanometer technology.

What you should know: Rebellions has raised $220 million since its 2020 founding and was last valued at $1 billion, with the current round expected to push that valuation higher.

• Major investors include SK Hynix (a South Korean memory chip giant), SK Telecom, Korea Telecom, and Saudi Aramco, positioning the company as a nationally strategic AI semiconductor player.
• The startup focuses specifically on AI inference chips rather than training, targeting the market for processing live data through pre-trained AI models like chatbots.

The Samsung partnership: The collaboration extends beyond investment to manufacturing and technology integration, creating potential strategic advantages for both companies.

• Samsung is producing Rebellions’ second-generation Rebel chips using its advanced 4-nanometer process—the same node size used by Nvidia’s latest Blackwell chips from TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).
• The chips will also incorporate Samsung’s high bandwidth memory (HBM3e), a stacked memory design built for handling large-scale data processing workloads.
• Four Rebel chips combine to create the Rebel-Quad product that Rebellions plans to launch later this year.

Why this matters: The partnership could provide Samsung’s struggling foundry business with a major customer while positioning South Korea as a serious competitor in the AI chip market.

• Samsung currently holds a distant second place to TSMC in foundry market share and has been actively seeking to expand its chipmaking division.
• If Rebellions successfully scales its customer base, it could generate substantial manufacturing volume for Samsung’s foundry operations.

What they’re saying: Early testing results have exceeded expectations, according to company leadership.

• “Initial results have been very promising,” CEO Sunghyun Park told CNBC, noting that these positive outcomes influenced Samsung’s investment decision.
• “Our master plan is going public,” CFO Sungkyue Shin said, indicating the IPO will proceed once the current funding round closes.

The competitive landscape: Rebellions enters a crowded field of companies challenging Nvidia’s dominance in AI semiconductors.

• The startup will compete against both established players like AMD and numerous other startups in the AI inference chip space.
• With backing from major South Korean conglomerates and strategic partnerships, Rebellions aims to make a global impact in the rapidly expanding AI chip market.