[AI Revolution]⑪ 'Korea's Nvidia' Rebellion, Leaps Forward with AI Semiconductor 'Atom'

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT is shaking up the global industrial landscape, and as AI spreads across various fields, the AI semiconductor market is rapidly growing. AI semiconductor design startup Rebellion launched Korea's first AI semiconductor suitable for implementing generative AI like ChatGPT in February.

AI semiconductors are non-memory semiconductors that execute large-scale computations required for AI operations at ultra-high speed and ultra-low power. Market research firm Gartner estimated the AI semiconductor market size last year at $44.4 billion (approximately 58.59 trillion KRW), a 27.8% increase from the previous year. It is expected to reach $86.1 billion (approximately 113.62 trillion KRW) by 2026. The government plans to invest 826.2 billion KRW by 2030 in domestic AI semiconductor development, focusing on intelligent semiconductors (PIM, Processor In Memory) that can operate data centers with low power consumption.

Park Sung-hyun, CEO of Rebellion, is introducing Atomchip.
[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Rebellion manufactures semiconductor neural processing units (NPU), which are used for deep learning algorithm computations, the core of AI. In February, it launched the data center AI semiconductor 'ATOM.' The design was completed in June last year and finalized through Samsung Electronics' foundry 5-nanometer ultra-fine process. ATOM supports 'Transformer'-based natural language processing technology. Transformer is a type of deep learning algorithm that tracks internal relationships within data such as words in a sentence to learn context and meaning. It is used by ChatGPT and Google's BERT. It can also be utilized as a 'vision model,' which applies deep learning to images for automatic recognition and analysis. Another advantage is the significant reduction in power consumption by streamlining the scope of work. It reduced power consumption to about 20% compared to NVIDIA's A100, the market leader. ATOM and AI semiconductor design technology were also introduced to the global market at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 held in Barcelona, Spain, in February.

Rebellion is an AI semiconductor startup founded in 2020 by CEO Park Sung-hyun, a Ph.D. graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who previously worked at Intel, Samsung Electronics, and SpaceX. The company began gaining attention in 2021, just one year after its founding, by launching the financial transaction-specialized NPU 'ION,' which applied TSMC's 7-nanometer process. It offers faster processing speeds and higher power efficiency than Intel's 'Goya,' the industry leader. It has secured major U.S. Wall Street financial firms as clients.

Rebellion Atom
Photo by Rebellion

As it stood out in the market with its technological prowess, Rebellion also secured strong partners. In July last year, KT made a strategic investment of 30 billion KRW in Rebellion. KT plans to equip its upcoming ultra-large AI 'Mideum' lightweight model, scheduled for release in the first half of the year, with the ATOM chip. Additionally, Rebellion has raised a cumulative total of 112 billion KRW from Temasek Pavilion, Kakao Ventures, and others. Its corporate value reaches approximately 400 billion KRW.

Rebellion is also participating in the 'Korean-style AI Full Stack' project led by KT. AI Full Stack refers to products and services covering the entire process from infrastructure such as AI semiconductors, which form the foundation of AI business, to AI application services provided to customers. At the end of last year, Rebellion announced plans to target Southeast Asian data centers through KT's AI Full Stack in partnership with KT Cloud and More. Southeast Asian telecom companies owning data centers are the main customers, and the strategy is to secure overseas sales channels with Korean-style AI semiconductors that combine Rebellion's server AI semiconductors with AI services and software from KT and More.

Shin Sung-kyu, Rebellion's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), said, "With ChatGPT spreading worldwide, there is so much for Rebellion to do. We will explore various markets and domains that the ATOM chip can cover, as well as corporate demand in the era of NPUs following GPUs."