It has been confirmed that Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, met directly with Park Sung-hyun, CEO of domestic AI semiconductor company Rebellion. While foreign media reported that both sides discussed technical cooperation, investment, and even the possibility of an acquisition, Rebellion acknowledged the meeting.
A Rebellion official told MoneyToday on the 23rd, "CEO Jensen Huang and CEO Park Sung-hyun met." However, when asked about what the two CEOs discussed, the official said, "We do not know."
Previously, Bloomberg reported, citing multiple sources, that CEO Huang and CEO Park met recently at NVIDIA's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, to discuss potential cooperation. While technical cooperation, investment, and even acquisition possibilities were mentioned, it was noted that these discussions are still in the early stages and whether they will lead to actual transactions remains unclear.
Founded in 2020, Rebellion develops NPUs (neural processing units) for data centers. Park (CEO) stated in January last year, "The AI training and learning sector will likely remain dominated by NVIDIA," while also declaring its goal to become the leading company among 'non-NVIDIA'.
Rebellion merged with Sapion Korea, an AI semiconductor subsidiary of SK Telecom. According to Rebellion's audit report, KT, SK Telecom, and SK Hynix America are classified as entities holding significant influence over Rebellion through their rights to appoint directors.
In March this year, Rebellion successfully completed a pre-IPO worth 640 billion won, securing a corporate valuation of 3.4 trillion won. Notably selected as the first direct investment target of the National Growth Fund, it secured 300 billion won in policy funds, including 250 billion won from the Advanced Strategic Industry Fund and 50 billion won from the Korea Development Bank. If acquisition discussions materialize in the future, the government's stance alongside existing shareholders is expected to draw significant attention. Recently, Rebellion has also expanded its AI inference applications, such as running SK Telecom's AI foundation model 'A.X K1' on its own NPU servers.
This is not the first time a domestic NPU company has emerged as an acquisition target for global tech giants. Previously, Meta proposed acquiring FuriusAI for 800 million dollars (approximately 1.2 trillion won), but FuriusAI rejected the offer and chose to pursue independent NPU development and Yangsan. This indicates that global tech giants are turning their attention even to domestic NPU companies to secure AI semiconductor competitiveness.
NVIDIA is also rapidly expanding its touchpoints with Korea's AI ecosystem. Last month, CEO Huang met consecutively with SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun, and Naver Lee Sa-hoe (Chairman). On the 13th of this month, he signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo for collaboration on humanoid robots, AI factories, and mobility. NVIDIA also announced a strategic investment plan worth 1.2 trillion dollars in Naver.
Whether Rebellion, which has grown aiming to lead the 'non-NVIDIA' camp, will join hands with NVIDIA is a new key point of interest. It remains to be seen whether this meeting will lead to technical cooperation or, as foreign media reported, progress to discussions on investment or acquisition.
in TECH
