[Exclusive] Startup Led by Chey Tae-won's Eldest Son-in-Law Receives 'Love Call' from Semiconductor Legend Jim Keller

Jim Keller Proposes Merger of AI Startup 'More' and Tenstorrent
Strategic Collaboration with US AMD... Valuation Over 1 Trillion Won
Rising Expectations as Rival to Nvidia's 'CUDA'
SoftBank Vision Fund Also Shows Interest

Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent.

Jim Keller, the legendary figure in the semiconductor industry and CEO of Tenstorrent, sent a love call to an AI infrastructure startup involving the eldest son-in-law of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won. It is reported that the SoftBank Vision Fund, led by SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son, has also expressed investment intentions in this startup. This is interpreted as an evaluation that the startup could become a rival to 'CUDA,' the AI development platform that is the core of Nvidia's competitiveness.

According to the investment industry on the 26th, CEO Keller recently proposed a merger between his semiconductor design company Tenstorrent and the AI infrastructure startup 'More.' Keller is regarded as a legend in semiconductor design, having worked at AMD, Apple, Tesla, and Intel.

The corporate value of More, as assessed by CEO Keller, is reported to be over 1 trillion won. Considering that More's valuation was in the mid-300 billion won range earlier this year, it has more than tripled in a short time, soaring to unicorn status (a private startup valued at over 1 trillion won).

CEO Keller focused on More's AI infrastructure solutions. More is an AI startup founded in 2020 by Seoul National University graduates, including Cho Kang-won, who created Korea's first domestic supercomputer 'Cheondung.' Yoon Do-yeon, the eldest son-in-law of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, also joined from the early stages and served as co-CEO until last year. Currently, CEO Yoon has left the company but retains shares, and CEO Cho is leading the company. More's main products are enterprise AI cloud solutions such as AI infrastructure software. Investors highly praise the fact that using More's solutions to create major AI services like large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3 can reduce dependence on Nvidia.

Currently, the AI market's computational semiconductor sector is absolutely dependent on Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) and the programming platform 'CUDA' for both hardware and software. The greatest competitive advantage of More's solution is that it allows various AI models to be used on processors other than Nvidia GPUs without code changes. AMD, a competitor of Nvidia and a company Keller was involved with, is also closely collaborating with More in the same context.

Previously, CEO Keller attempted to participate in More's $22 million Series B investment round last year. However, due to procedures such as US government verification required for investments in companies related to national security, the timing was missed. For this reason, the investment industry explains that the direction was shifted to proposing a merger instead. Keller's Tenstorrent is a semiconductor design company that has already attracted about 130 billion won in investments from domestic companies such as Hyundai Motor Group, Samsung Electronics, and LG Electronics. It is also a major customer of Samsung Electronics' foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing).

The SoftBank Vision Fund is also known to have proposed an investment in More. It is rumored to have sent a love call for an investment exceeding 100 billion won, viewing the company's value at over 1 trillion won. CEO Cho was cautious in a phone interview with Asia Economy, saying, "It is difficult to confirm investment-related details at this time."