KT Group invests 33 billion KRW in Rebellion to strengthen AI competitiveness

KT Invests in AI Semiconductor Design Startup Libellion
Efforts to Develop Semiconductor 'Libel'... Securing AI Competitiveness
"Will Continue Collaboration with Various Tech Companies"

KT Group has strengthened its AI competitiveness by investing 33 billion KRW in the domestic AI semiconductor design startup 'Rebellion'.

On the 30th, KT Group's KT, KT Cloud, and KT Investment announced that they will invest 20 billion KRW, 10 billion KRW, and 3 billion KRW respectively in Rebellion's Series B round. This is the second investment following KT's 30 billion KRW and KT Investment's 3.5 billion KRW investments in 2022.

Based on this funding, Rebellion will focus on developing the semiconductor 'Ribel', capable of inference for AI models up to 100 billion parameters. Rebellion is an important partner in KT's AI hardware sector. It co-developed the neural processing unit (NPU) 'Atom', which features faster computation speeds and higher power efficiency compared to domestic and international competitors, with KT. This contributed to the commercialization of KT Cloud's first domestic NPU infrastructure service. Atom was also partially applied to the lightweight version of KT's large-scale AI model 'Mideum'.

KT Group plans to actively utilize various AI semiconductors released by Rebellion, including applying Ribel to the recently spotlighted on-device AI, to strengthen its AI infrastructure and service competitiveness.

KT Group stated, "We will continue to collaborate with various tech companies, including Rebellion, to ensure that domestically produced AI semiconductors can be competitive in the global market."

Meanwhile, KT Group is forming an AI alliance based on domestic technology software and hardware from companies such as KT Cloud, Rebellion, Upstage, More, and Qanda to implement its business strategy.